


Steady Hands

by thegeminisage



Series: Anchor [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Derek Hale, Codependency, Cohabitation, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, M/M, Memory Loss, Murder, Nightmares, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redemption, Repressed Memories, Sexual Dysfunction, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, those last two have nothing to do with each other i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 02:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15209066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeminisage/pseuds/thegeminisage
Summary: Twenty-four hours after the death of his sister, Chris Argent wakes in Derek Hale's loft with his hands trembling too badly to load and fire a gun, and no matter what he does, he can't make them stop. He made a promise to protect Beacon Hills in Allison's stead, but now he has to decide how he carries on her legacy when he doesn't know if he can fight, if he can ever lay his guilt to rest, and if he's truly capable of doing good when he has already done so much harm.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> **THIS FIC IS NOT STAND-ALONE; IT IS A SEQUEL. READ THE OTHER ONE FIRST, IT'S BETTER ANYWAY!**
> 
> **If you haven't read _Anchor_ :** Hi! This is a short story taking place in the same continuity as _Anchor_ (in fact, it begins just a few hours after _Anchor_ ends), a longfic about a Chris/Derek post-Season 4 AU. You probably won't enjoy or even understand this very much if you haven't read it, and not to pat myself on the back, but it also has a pretty kickass plot twist near the end that this fic ruins completely, so I highly suggest you check it out before reading this. It's the first fic in this series, you can't miss it!
> 
>  **If you have read _Anchor_ :** Hi, welcome back, that took forever, didn't it? I know I said I wasn't going to write any Big Sequel to _Anchor_ , but there were a lot of conversations, realizations, and other things I wanted to put into it that I just couldn't make fit and still preserve the flow and pacing I wanted. I thought I would sort of throw them together in a series of vignettes and get it up in no time flat...but the more I worked on it, the more I realized I needed to add to make it a semi-coherent narrative, and the more things I thought of that would go best in this particular part of their lives. That is NOT usually how I put together a story, so it fought with me pretty much the entire time, and took way more time than I expected, and wound up being way LONGER than I expected. Nonetheless, I am beyond thrilled to have finally gotten it off my chest. Additionally: if you've also read _Foxholes_ (fic right before this one), pat yourself on the back! Observant people will notice that this story begins with coverage of that from Chris's point-of-view.
> 
>  **Warnings** of the general nature are in the tags. To save space and avoid spoilers, more detailed warnings are in the end notes.

"Turn left."

Chris sits on the corner of Lakefield Drive and Oak Hill Lane, gripping his steering wheel with white knuckles. His blinker is on. He does not move.

"Turn left," the GPS says again.

Chris swallows, eyes darting to the street signs and then away. Sweat beads on his forehead. His heart beats double-time, and if Derek was here he'd have already called Chris out on it, and the way he must surely stink of fear.

This is stupid. It's _ridiculous_. He's driven down this street a hundred times.

And yet.

"Turn left onto Oak Hill Lane," the GPS prompts.

A car honks behind him. Chris flips off the blinker and gasses it forward. He does not turn.

And that's how it starts.

 

 

* * *

# S T E A D Y   H A N D S

* * *

 

 

He's fine.

All right, yes, maybe he's a few minutes late for his meeting with the real estate agent, but she doesn't seem to mind, nor does she comment on the fact that he's still visibly banged up from where Derek nearly killed him yesterday. They get down to the business of looking at apartments with minimal small talk, and if Chris only hears every third word she says because he's busy cataloguing the exit points of every room they pass through, well, it's nothing to be concerned about.

"...and it's a _very_ safe neighborhood, we had a reputable security agency come in last year to check everything out after the, uh, murders—"

Chris oversaw that consultation personally, actually, back when he was still pretending to have a day job, which is why he's checking this particular building first. He doesn't remember anyone here, and no one else seems to know him either, but he's pretty unrecognizable these days, even to himself. After the truths he uncovered yesterday—perhaps especially to himself.

"...post office right on the corner, and there's a park just a few blocks away..."

Yes, and there are children playing in it now, Chris hears them from here. An old, familiar sound; it's impossible to have lived in the suburbs for any amount of time and not know it. But today it crawls under his skin and grates like sandpaper over his nerves, every shriek of laughter stiffening up his shoulders and locking his muscles so he doesn't flinch. No one's actually screaming, there's no danger, but his internal alarms all keep going off anyway. It makes Chris want to reach for his gun. It makes him want to take care of the threat.

He's _fine_. He's dealt with this sort of thing before, it's just hypervigilance, nothing new. Sure, it's normally at night, it normally stops him from sleeping, but he's had a rough month. It was a long, hard day yesterday. He knew staying in Beacon Hills meant there would be difficulties. He's handling it.

Then there's a loud _crack_ from outside. It's probably a car backfiring, or a transformer, but what Chris hears is a gunshot and what he does is start violently, hand flying into his jacket on sheer instinct.

Somehow, he manages not to draw his gun.

It's a very near thing. His hand stays closed tight around the grip inside his jacket, trembling, as he tries to fight down the fear response, overcome the terrified racing of his heart. The realtor jumped too, hand over her heart, but she freezes when her eyes land on Chris. Suddenly, she looks nearly as frightened as he feels, her eyes flicking between his face and where Chris's hand disappears beneath his coat.

Shit. "Excuse me," Chris says, "I'm sorry—" He says something else to dismiss himself, perhaps thanking her for her time, but he barely hears it. He's already on his way out the door, his breath coming too quick and too fast, and he can't seem to make himself let go of his gun until he gets back out to the parking lot and needs both hands to get in his car and lock the doors behind him.

He takes a deep breath.

That was _completely_ unacceptable. It's one thing to be rough around the edges, but it's another to be dangerous. To be—out of control. Chris cannot, _cannot_ , be pulling weapons around innocent people when there's no threat. And there is no threat, he reminds himself, not now; they're back home, he and Derek, and the Calaveras have gone back to Mexico. The hunt for Kate is over.

" _Jesus_ ," he says aloud, because that thought is like a punch to the gut; leaves him winded and bent forward over the steering wheel.

His sister died yesterday. Katie is _dead_ because of him. And Chris is apartment hunting.

"Get it together," he mutters, squeezing his eyes shut, "get it together, get it together..."

But he can't seem to put it away. All the little tricks he's mastered over the years: controlling his breathing, distracting himself, focusing on the goal and the job rather than how he feels about it—they're just not working right now. There is _no danger_ , and he's still sitting in the driver's seat halfway to a nervous breakdown.

Maybe he should have expected this. But he felt so content and so hopeful when he woke up this morning next to Derek that perhaps part of him thought it really was that easy—that he could get away with unearthing something as old and painful as he did and leave it untouched where it lay. In a perfect world, the knowledge alone would be enough: he knows what he did, and why he tried so hard to remain loyal to a code of ethics that was ultimately corrupted beyond saving. He knows, and he made a vow to change.

But it can't erase the fact that twenty-three years ago, he looked upon someone who loved him, someone terrified and begging for comfort in his last moments, and murdered him in cold blood.

The mere thought of it has Chris's eyes popping open, desperate to take in his surroundings, because he can't see that face again right now. He can't.

He's just got to stop dwelling on it, that's all. It won't do anyone any good. He has a new code to follow, an old promise to keep, and he can't protect anyone if he's too fucked up to be out in public, let alone do his goddamn job.

Chris grips the wheel a little tighter, the leather clammy under his hands. He's going to be okay. Once he settles in to a new place to live, and gets back to work, everything is going to be just fine.

 

* * *

 

The Hales aren't the only old family with hidden nooks and crannies all over Beacon Hills. The Argents don't have a secret vault, but there is an emergency bunker hidden in the maze of maintenance tunnels beneath the town. Confined, out of the way, and stocked full to bursting with weaponry, the bunker was where Chris spent most of his nights after he came back to hunt Kate and help stop the Benefactor. But it's not meant to be lived in except for short stretches in emergencies—there's only one fold-out-of-the-wall cot with an itchy blanket and no pillow, a cupboard full of canned goods and bottled water, and the world's smallest bathroom—and he's not looking forward to going back. The whole space reminds him of the hours spent there with Gerard when he was younger, and the nights he spent there alone as an adult, dreading what would become of Kate. The idea of renting a motel room without Derek makes him feel strangely lonely in a way he'd rather not examine right now, though, and...

Well, after what happened earlier today, maybe he feels a little better with the twelve-inch steel door between him and the rest of the world. Better to hole up here than continue to menace the general public with his instability.

The door scrapes over the floor as Chris pushes it shut and slides all the locks closed. He flips on the lights—only a few, mostly near the floor, to conserve energy—and looks around at the guns hanging on the walls, the worn desk with stacks of dusty books on it, the low slatted ceiling designed for ventilation in this cramped underground space. "Home sweet home," he sighs, and tosses his bag down near the door. Maybe he should have just stayed in a motel after all; he certainly doesn't feel any less lonely down here. This is the first night he'll be spending alone since he left Beacon Hills a month ago. At least he has as ethernet connection; he can spend his evening looking at apartment listings.

No sooner does he get settled at the desk and open his laptop than a howl cuts through the quiet. Chris jumps right out of his skin, _again_ , cursing as his laptop clatters to the floor. That's _Derek_ , he'd know that sound anywhere after listening to it for a solid month. What on earth is he—?

Ah. The full moon. It'd been a full moon the night Derek died, and then they traveled together for a month, so it must be that time again. Chris hasn't been keeping track at all.

Well, good for him. Chris hopes Derek is at the preserve; he mentioned twice (which, for Derek, is two more times than he mentions most things) that he wanted to try his new form on the land out there. Maybe he even picked up Scott and the rest of the pack, and they're all running around like lunatics, or whatever else mostly-in-control werewolves do on a full moon. Scott and Derek can handle them, of course, but still—he hopes they're being careful.

Chris pulls out his phone to confirm the lunar phase, but he can't quite make himself put it away again. They hadn't made any plans to meet back up, he and Derek, Chris having taken his leave after Derek ducked into the shower. Derek's exact words to him before he went were _See you_ , but in typical Derek fashion, he hadn't said where or when. Chris could call him and ask. He saves all his contacts with the same conscientious practicality he does everything, so he does still have Derek's number. They exchanged them at Chris's suggestion the day the nogitsune had Derek and the others under thrall, after the spell wore off and left a painful silence in its wake. But it feels strange; they've never really texted or called each other unless it was a matter of business, or life and death. Chris has the sneaking suspicion Derek prefers speaking in person, if he has to speak at all.

Chris could do that, too. Derek might not be out _all_ night, and Chris knows where he lives. He just isn't sure if he's welcome. Chris may not understand as much about Derek as he'd like to, but he knows werewolves get funny about their home territory. And after what happened to Derek's last home, he doesn't want to intrude. When Derek wants to see him, he'll—he'll call, won't he?

Chris laughs out loud, alone in his little underground room. It took getting beaten half to death while Derek was under the influence of green wolfsbane to get Derek to admit he liked Chris at all, at least out loud. He is _never_ going to call.

Well, the worst that can happen is Derek turns him away. Mood lightened, Chris puts his things away, and gets his jacket and his keys. Truthfully, he's sore enough from yesterday's injuries that he ought not be doing it, but—for sentimentality's sake, he decides to take the bike.

Last night's storm has passed; it's a cold clear night, and the fresh air is doubly welcome after being underground. Chris doubts Derek will be home anytime soon, so he takes the long way around town just to enjoy the ride. When he finally does get to Derek's place all the windows are still dark, but he heads on in anyway.

This place has no locks, Derek told him once, because most of the people who'd want to Derek harm can either pick them, break them, or just go right through the windows. There's no point. It _is_ armed with an alarm that goes off whenever anyone steps foot in the building, but right now it's broken. Good thing, too—Chris has no idea how to disarm it.

He won't go in the loft if no one's home, locks or not. Because the last person to enter uninvited was Kate, and she's a living example of things not to do, when it comes to Derek.

Chris pauses in the empty lobby, by the elevator. _Was_ a living example. Not living anymore.

No. He grieved his sister once already. He doesn't have it in him to do it a second time just yet, especially not here and now. The darkness is starting to make him jumpy again; Chris's gaze darts to every flickering shadow like it's about to leap out and attack. It's time to move. The last thing he needs is a repeat of this afternoon. He punches the button for the elevator, flexing his hands so he won't reach for his gun.

Chris really doesn't expect anyone to be home yet, so he's surprised when, just as he's about to knock on Derek's door, it pulls itself open and he's face-to-face with a rather startled Derek.

Smooth. "Hi," Chris says. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, feeling self-conscious. "Sorry," he says, "I didn't mean to startle you, I've just had a hell of a day and I was hoping—" That Derek actually does want to see him again. It's hard to know where they stand with it, now that they're not together 24/7 anymore. Harder still to ask; Derek dislikes questions on his best days and Chris would lay money on the most informative he got answer being a shrug. He clears his throat. "Sorry," he says again, "I should have called, I know, but—it's a little weird, isn't it?"

Derek ducks his head a little, so it takes Chris a second to catch his laugh. "A little." He pauses. "Do you...want to come in?"

Chris lets out a breath of relief and tries for a smile. "I'd love to," he says, and Derek steps back to let him inside.

 

* * *

 

"So what'd you do today?" Derek asks as he pulls the door closed.

That's a loaded question. "Apartment hunting," Chris answers, because it's technically true and he doesn't know how to bring up...the rest of it. Doesn't actually particularly want to, because something in his hindbrain finally began to register _safety_ when the loft door closed and he doesn't want to spoil it just yet. "Don't know anybody with vacancies, do you?"

It's just a jab at the fact that the entire apartment building is empty, for reasons that continue to elude Chris, but Derek gives him a flat look and says in a voice that brooks no argument, "No."

Great. Chris just walked in the door, and already he's put his foot in his mouth. It really was just a joke—God knows it's too early to even consider anything resembling serious commitment—but something about Derek's vehemence leaves him with an uncomfortable pit in his stomach. Does Derek not want him around? Maybe he shouldn't have come. "I'm kidding, Derek," he says softly.

Derek shoulders slump. "Oh."

There's a short silence, during which Chris briefly considers and then decides against taking his leave now. "What about you?" he asks finally. "Running the preserve, right? I heard you howl. You get Scott and the others to go with you?"

Derek clears his throat. "Probably not their idea of fun."

Which means— "Did you even ask?"

Derek doesn't answer. He searches Chris's face, looking troubled, and his eyes linger on the clawmarks on Chris's cheek. He reaches out to brush his thumb over them—and pulls away quick, like if he's fast enough Chris won't notice him taking the pain. But how could he miss it? The gashes in his leg that needed stitches, the bite in his shoulder, and especially the tight throbbing in his ribs, which Chris suspects are cracked or at least bruised thanks that kick in the chest Derek gave him—it all drains away in an instant, leaving him a little dizzy, but finally take a full breath again.

"You know you don't have to do that," Chris says.

There's an unhappy twist to Derek's mouth. "I think I do."

"Derek—"

"You going to stay the night?" Derek asks, turning to go down the stairs.

Chris sighs. No point beating his head against that brick wall. Sometimes it's necessary to pick his battles, with Derek. "That's up to you," he says, slipping off his jacket. There's nowhere to hang it, so he follows Derek down and lays it on the back of the couch, fingers tapping against it restlessly. He confesses, "I probably won't be good company." He avoided bad dreams last night because of how exhausted he was. He doubts he'll get that lucky twice.

Derek turns back towards Chris, considering. "I figured." He pauses, looking almost hesitant. "You can stay," he says, "if you want to." His eyes flick away.

Some of Chris's doubt clears. Well, Derek can't say he wasn't warned. "Believe me," Chris says, "I want to."

Magic words: Derek closes the space between them, takes Chris's face in his hands, and kisses him.

It kind of surprises Chris how fast the tension leaves him, as though Derek can take that away too. Chris has been wound up tight all day, but between this and the rush of endorphins that come with werewolf painkillers, it's like someone flipped a switch. He slides his hands up Derek's back, bunching up his shirt, and thinks, _Finally_.

"What," Derek murmurs against his lips when the kiss breaks, "did you think this wasn't a thing anymore? Now that we're back home?"

Chris kisses him again instead of answering. Derek can play it cool all he wants, but Chris wasn't imagining his hesitation earlier. "Did _you_?"

Derek hums under his breath. He pulls back enough to meet Chris's eyes, his arms still wound around Chris's neck and his expression unreadable. The moment hangs—and Chris is the first to crack, smiling in spite of himself. It doesn't take Derek long to follow, and just like that, they've found some of their footing again.

"It's all pretty new for me too," Chris says, "if that makes you feel any better to hear."

He doesn't think he imagines the nervous energy in the lift of Derek's eyebrows, either. "Drop by anytime," he says finally. "I'll hear you coming."

Then Derek eases Chris back against one of the wooden support columns and reaches for his fly, and they don't do much more talking after that.

 

* * *

 

A few hours later Chris wakes with Derek's face hanging above his, Derek calling his name.

He's instantly alert, heart racing fit to burst. "What?" He pushes himself to a sitting position—harder now that the pain in his ribs is back—and wishes it would be less insensitive to keep his .45 under the mattress while he's in Derek's bed.

"Bad dream," Derek says hesitantly, and adds, "—I guess."

He doesn't get it. "You?"

Derek gives him a disbelieving look. " _You._ "

Chris shakes his head to clear it. He feels—strange. Uneasy. His throat hurts. "You really do have amazing hearing."

Now Derek's expression turns spooked, which does nothing for Chris's unease. "You were shouting."

"Oh," Chris says faintly. He can't remember what he was dreaming about, but it must have been bad: he feels a sense of loss so profound it's a wonder he can't reach out and touch it.

Derek adds, "Now you're crying."

A chill of dread creeps up Chris's spine. "I'm _what_?"

He raises a hand to his face, and sure enough, his fingertips come away wet. They begin to tremble as he looks down at them, and then his vision blurs.

Twenty-three years without shedding a single tear, and now...

Derek meets his eyes, serious. "What'd you really do today?"

Chris blinks rapidly, dragging his hand down over his face, but the tears don't stop. He can't remember what he was dreaming about. The devastation just sits in the hollowed-out place chest like an anvil, and it won't let up.

"I really was apartment hunting," he says again, "until a car or something backfired outside, and..." He takes a shuddering breath. "I don't know, it—it startled me." He has to force the truth out through his teeth. "I nearly pulled my gun on the realtor."

Derek lets out a low whistle.

"Yes," Chris agrees. He gives Derek a tight smile and lets his gaze drop. "I'll get it under control. I just need a little time."

Chris feels Derek's eyes on him, skeptical. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

What? "Why the hell not?"

Derek hesitates, then shrugs. "Nothing. Forget it."

" _Derek._ "

Derek huffs a breath out through his nose. "Okay," he says. "You want my opinion—you had it under control already, right? All those years. But you didn't _have_ it. You had to go through all that at the river—"

Chris's heartrate picks up. He doesn't want to think about that. "Stop," he whispers.

"You asked." Derek lifts his eyebrows. "Look, this thing, Allison's code—you'll always be a hunter. You can't tell me you don't know a pattern when you see one."

A pattern? What pattern, what's his daughter got to do with—

Oh. Shit.

Chris was raised to believe that should emotions ever interfere with the job, they were to be buried. It's the only way he knows how to deal with pain that exceeds his tolerance. And he's _good_ at it. He checked out when he killed Victoria, for the brief moments it took to make himself hold the knife and drive it in; later at the funeral he held Allison while she wept without hearing or feeling any of it, the same way he did at Kate's. And then after Allison died too he was the one who coached the kids on what to say to the authorities, who identified her body—and then he put his little girl in the ground, all without shedding a single tear.

Chris can barely remember all those funerals. And without meaning to he buried Allison's legacy with her; somewhere along the way, he lost their promise to protect without ever realizing he'd done it. If it hadn't been for Derek, he might never have found it again.

He has, he's coming to realize, a habit of making himself forget the things that hurt him.

"You're right," Chris says slowly. "My memory, my head, it's not...right. Riley and Allison—Jesus, I lost everything I had left of them, and I did it to myself." Chris wipes uselessly at his eyes. "I can't just—shut it down. I can't lose that again. Not after everything it took to get it back."

There's a long silence, because Derek always gets quiet when he isn't sure what to say. Then: "You won't." His tone is bracing. "Sometimes all you can do is ride it out, but it is survivable. You'll find the other side of it."

Chris is still crying. It's slow and quiet without any of the hysteria that came with the memory of Riley's death, but it alarms him all the same because _he can't stop it_ —and even if he could, maybe he shouldn't. "Sorry I woke you," he says finally. "I'll be better in the morning. Or—deal with it, if I'm not."

Derek lifts his eyebrows at that, but mercifully refrains from comment. "Not like I haven't woken you plenty of times," he points out. It's true; Derek tends to get nightmares more often than Chris does, and his are always loud.

Derek slides out of bed. He's still wearing his sweatpants, but he did strip off his shirt before lying down, and Chris watches his muscles move beneath his tattoo as he walks around to the chair on Chris's side of the bed and picks up Chris's phone. "What are you doing?"

Derek's thumbs pause over the screen. "...texting myself," he confesses. "Lost your number."

An exhausted smile tugs at Chris's lips. "You could have just asked."

Derek doesn't grace him with a reply, because he always gets quiet when he's embarrassed, too. Curious, Chris checks his phone when Derek's done, and sees that Derek sent no words at all, only a smiley face.

"It's better that you came over," Derek says, and gets back into bed. "You shouldn't be alone right now."

"You did say it was survivable," Chris points out. He drags a hand over his face, and realizes the crying has slowed to a stop—for now. "I suppose you would know." Derek's lost more people than even Chris has, though it's perhaps an unkind thing to point out.

If Derek thinks so, he doesn't show it. " _I_ was never by myself," he says. "I had Laura."

And now he barely has anybody, just like Chris. So maybe, Chris thinks, as he lies back down next to Derek, they don't make such a strange pair after all.

 

* * *

 

Since Chris isn't keeping his pistol under Derek's mattress like he's used to doing at home, he keeps it on the bedside chair next to his phone instead. Gerard never kept himself far from a weapon, and he taught his children that lesson, too: _always be armed, always be ready, because you are never, ever safe—not even in your sleep._

Chris had Allison abducted while she was at a gas station to begin her training as a hunter, and at the time he thought he was being kind. Better than being taken while she was sleeping, from her own home, her own bed, like Chris was. He was barely into his teens that first night, and two of Gerard's men dragged him out to their car barefoot and shirtless with eight inches of snow on the ground. Chris has kept a weapon closeby ever since—tucked into his waistband, hidden in his jacket, shut inside the glove compartment, and yes, slid under his mattress. And he developed a habit even Gerard never had: instead of carrying a single pistol, he always carries two.

And every single morning, as he has in all the years since, Chris checks his guns. He completely unloads and reloads them, makes sure they're clean and in working order, and that they're ready to be fired—should the need arise.

Every morning except this one.

Maybe it's because he couldn't bring himself to eat very much yesterday, or maybe because it's such a cold morning and Derek's loft is so poorly insulated. Maybe it's because he kept himself and Derek up all night, tossing and turning and eventually shouting himself awake a second time. But for whatever reason, he woke this morning with his hands still trembling, and he can't get them to stop.

He can't get the rounds back into the magazine.

Three times he drops the bullets onto the chair; the fourth attempt and two of them roll off the edge. Chris curses and in a fit of frustration hurls the damn thing across the room, sending it clattering over the floor.

This, of course, wakes Derek. "What?" he says, still half-asleep even as he jerks into a sitting position.

"Nothing," Chris snaps, harder than he means to, and grits his teeth. Derek's normally a freakishly light sleeper. He must have been truly exhausted to sleep through Chris sitting up and unloading the gun to begin with, and that's Chris's fault. Jesus, he's a wreck. "Nothing," he says again, a little apologetic. He gets out of bed, trying not to wince as pain shoots through his ribs, and goes to get the magazine and the rounds where they've scattered.

He feels Derek's eyes on him as he tries to slip the bullets in on his way back to the bed. No good, of course. He drops another one. He's been able to do this tied up and blindfolded since he was a teenager, Derek's watched him do it in seconds dozens of times, and now he's dropping bullets. Fantastic.

Derek watches Chris sit back on the bed and try it a couple of more times. Chris is normally very comfortable with Derek's long silences, but this one grates on him; he feels watched, judged. He's about to bite Derek's head off for real when Derek lays a hand over his and says, "Let me."

Chris jerks away, teeth grinding. "I can do it."

"If you could you would have done it already," Derek says, annoyed. " _Let me._ "

Chris thinks seriously about pushing it—it seems everything in him wants to pick a fight this morning—but at the very, very last second he manages to reign in his temper.

He and Derek have done enough fighting.

Chris forces himself to his feet instead, leaving it to Derek, before he can change his mind. "I still can't believe it," he says, trying his best to let the anger go. "A werewolf with claws and fangs can load my Beretta, and I—" Can't. He starts picking up his clothes and getting dressed. Thank goodness he didn't pick a shirt with buttons.

"Lost my claws and fangs for awhile there," Derek reminds him. "I got them back." As soon as Chris finishes pulling his shirt down over his head, Derek's there, holding out the gun. "You'll get this back too."

Chris stares down at the gun, surprised to find that he doesn't actually want it back. What good is it if he can't load it and fire it? If he tries to pull it out on innocent people?

Derek waves the gun, more pointed, and Chris has to smile. Derek may have learned to load a weapon, but he still doesn't actually _like_ guns, does he? Then Chris thinks of Riley: shot full of holes, bleeding black onto the garage floor, dark eyes boring into Chris's own, and his smile drops. Not an uncommon way for a werewolf to go. Derek has every reason not to like them.

Chris blinks the image away and takes the gun. It feels like a ticking time bomb in his jacket, and so does the second one when he tucks it—without unloading it—into the back of his waistband. "Thanks."

Chris doesn't know what to make of Derek's mixed signals—that strong reaction to his joke last night followed by Derek telling him to drop by anytime—so the best he can do is try take it at face value. A visit is okay, and hanging around isn't. Maybe that means Derek would prefer to keep their _thing_ strictly to hookups now and maybe it doesn't; Chris is learning not to make assumptions where Derek is concerned. Either way, it's time to get lost.

After spending basically every living minute with Derek for a solid month, leaving, especially without being sure when or if he'll be back, still feels strange. "I'm gonna," Chris says, jerking his thumb back at the door.

"Right." Derek turns to head towards the back of the loft, and Chris turns to go. When Chris's hand is on the door handle, Derek calls, "Chris."

Chris wheels around. "Yeah?"

Derek stands at the arch of the busted brick wall, arms folded, looking entirely unapproachable—until one corner of his mouth turns up. "See you," he says, just like yesterday morning, and ducks back into the dark area behind the wall.

Oh. Chris lets go of the breath he'd been holding, a smile tugging at his lips too.

"See you," he echoes, and he takes his leave.


	2. Part II

Back on the road, it didn't take long for the hunt for Kate to settle into a routine for Chris and Derek. There was a rhythm to when they woke, when they worked, when they ate, when they slept. Chris thrives on routine, and suspects Derek does too; after he first told Chris the worst truths about Kate, he grew distant and went quiet, and in part it was sticking to that routine that helped establish normalcy again.

Now that they're at home and the hunt is over, everything feels up-ended again. Their common goal has been accomplished, and no longer do they have a reason to be around each other, let alone the way they were on the road, in relative isolation and for every waking minute. Now, seeing each other at all requires intent, and there's something about Derek that seems distant again; as though now that they have more space, he's chosen to take a step back, and put some of it between them.

Chris is grateful, then, when a new routine seems to establish itself.

Around seven that night, Derek texts him a single word: _Dinner?_

The message, while welcome, sacrifices clarity for brevity. Dinner when? Where? Chris is still visibly banged up from his fight against Derek—he's spent the last several hours on the cot in the bunker with ice packs and ibuprofen trying to catch a few good deep breaths without pain—and if they go out they're going to get stares, which opens up a whole host of new concerns if they're trying to stay discreet. He's still trying to decide on a reply—it's _weird_ , texting Derek—when his phone buzzes again.

_Takeout. My place._

Well, no one ever accused Derek Hale of being chatty. Chris might have figured Derek isn't big on being out in public either. _On my way_ , Chris sends back, and, clenching his teeth against the soreness in his ribs, manages to haul himself to his feet.

He has to take the car, this time, instead of the bike; the bike puts too much stress on his upper body for him to drive it when he's already this sore. But this isn't Chris's first experience with busted ribs and it probably won't be his last; he can ride it out. In two weeks, maybe three, he won't notice it anymore. Nothing to be concerned about.

Derek, unfortunately, seems to disagree. He meets Chris at his door with a stormy expression and greets him with, "You reek."

Chris, who is not used to putting in a great deal of thought into how he smells to werewolves, is thrown. "Beg your pardon?"

Derek scowls. He's leaning with one arm on the doorframe so Chris can't get in. "I broke your ribs, didn't I."

It's not a question, so Chris doesn't grace it with an answer. "I'll be fine. Are you going to let me in?"

Chris thinks the question will move things along, but Derek narrows his eyes and doesn't budge, because nothing with Derek could ever be so easy.

Chris can be stubborn too. He sets his jaw and doesn't speak.

Finally, Derek reaches out and takes hold of Chris's wrist, pressing his thumb into the pulse point the way he's done so many times before.

Chris sighs, exasperated, but he doesn't fight it; it _does_ feel good to be able to take a full breath again. He pulls away the first time he sees Derek wince, though. "Derek, this has nothing to do with you."

Derek scoffs, but he lets go, and steps back to let Chris inside. "You can believe that if you want to," he says. "It doesn't change anything."

And so this becomes the first part of their new normal: each night when Chris comes over, if Derek smells too much pain, they have this argument, and more often than not, it ends with Chris caving, and Derek's fingers around his wrist, black running up into his veins. Nothing Chris says or does can convince Derek that Chris's injuries aren't his fault. It's just another thing Kate did that he blames himself for.

While they wait for food—Derek's hearing focused down on the parking lot, so he can meet the delivery person outside—Chris, curious, usually pokes around the loft. It seemed pretty bare the first time Chris visited, but the more time he spends here, the more he notices. There are little details that say more about Derek than Derek typically says about himself, like how he rarely seems to turn on the heat, or how he's clean almost to a fault. How there's often wolf hair on the floor, but never on the furniture.

Most interestingly, how he eats. Part of the space behind the busted brick wall has a cabinet full of non-refrigerated foods, a drawer of plastic utensils, and a microwave. This functions as Derek's kitchen: he doesn't have a refrigerator, or stove, or any other major appliance. He never cooks, but orders out for each and every meal. Every night it's something new: there are, apparently, an infinite number of restaurants in Beacon Hills that Chris never knew about, and there is absolutely nothing Derek won't eat, so he's hellbent on trying everything on every menu. And while he politely stuck to eating exactly as much as Chris did while they were hunting Kate, when he's at home his werewolf metabolism has him eating enough for two, sometimes three people. He orders two meals instead of one and snacks on whatever's in his cabinets both before and after dinner. Chris forgot it was like that—Riley was constantly ravenous, after he was turned.

Derek indulges Chris's curiosity, never stopping him, sometimes not even following him when he moves out of sight, content to stay sprawled out on the couch with a book and answer his questions from there. It kind of makes Chris wonder where Derek's secrets are, if not in this loft—or if, perhaps, he's finally decided Chris is no longer a person to be keeping secrets from.

Three or four nights in, Chris finds himself a bit further behind the kitchen area, in the space behind the metal grate, which is a lot bigger than he expected it to be. Back here stand several enormous bookshelves, crammed to bursting with books, with stacks set on top of them and beside them on the floor in cardboard boxes. Chris runs his fingers over the titles. There's a little of just about everything: history, memoirs, fiction, crossword puzzles, almanacs, even one on woodworking. Hard covers, paperbacks, old books with broken spines and new ones that look like they've never been opened at all. There's also a half-complete set of encyclopedias near the bottom of one shelf with scorch marks on the spines—which tells Chris exactly what happened to the rest.

There are dictionaries, too, and they come in more languages than Chris can count, some he can't even identify. "Can you actually read any of these? Besides the French and Spanish."

"Not the Japanese," Derek calls from the main room. "I was going to get started on it a few months ago. Seemed relevant. Then we got busy."

That's one way to put it. If getting kidnapped and turned back into a teenager doesn't count as being busy, nothing does. "But the rest of them?"

Derek appears at the doorway. "Didn't want to go to college," he says. "Had to do something to keep Laura happy. We were all homeschooled until middle school, and my mother made us learn at least one. Figured I'd just pick up a few more."

Just _pick up_ a few more? Chris narrows his eyes. "Wait, so how many—?"

He knows Derek's expressions well enough by now to be able to tell when Derek is trying not to smile. "Fluent in four and semi-conversational in seven."

The rest of their evenings tend to go a lot like the ones out on the road did. They eat—on the terrace, if the weather isn't miserable, because Derek likes to be out of doors—and they talk, about the same sort of inconsequential things they've been talking about for the past month. Any lingering hesitation from their first night together gradually begins to fade once they're both back in their comfort zone of late-night conversation, but things still feel a little more charged than they used to. Because Chris and Derek are spending time together on purpose now, with no excuse to fall back on other than desiring one another's company. They're really doing this, whatever _this_ is, and it's still so fragile and so new. Chris suspects they both still half-expect it to blow up in their faces somehow; between the two of them, they've buried an awful lot of lovers.

One evening they eat dinner on the couch, and with their plates long since discarded, sort of sink down into it as they talk. Derek sits at a 45° angle to the arm and back of the couch, his legs half-hanging off the edge, and Chris lies on his back with his hands folded on his abdomen, legs propped up on the other arm. Neither of them really notice when he gradually shifts to give himself more and more room, until his head winds up resting against—very nearly on—Derek's thigh.

Derek stills and stops speaking midsentence. "Comfortable?"

Chris is more comfortable than he's been in quite awhile, in fact, but he wants to put Derek's comfort first. "I can move."

There's a pause. "You don't have to," Derek says finally.

To Chris, each of these little indulgences from Derek feel priceless beyond measure; something he wouldn't allow unless it was earned and deserved. "Good," Chris murmurs. "Because I am comfortable."

" ...good," Derek agrees. He might be hiding a smile. But then the moment passes, and he finishes listing all the languages he's studied, to answer a question Chris asked earlier.

"Is that what you do with free time?" Chris asks. "Stay in here and read? Study?"

Derek shakes his head. "I run, too. You could call it patrol—it's a good excuse. But I just like running. It's better than—" He cuts himself off, and clears his throat. "Uh, staying cooped up in here." He peers down at Chris. "What about you? Find somewhere to live yet?"

"I'm staying in the—" Chris pauses. There was a point in his life when, without thinking twice, he might have died to keep this secret, but that's behind him now. He's an Argent, yet he's stood in the Hale family vault. Every loved one the two of them have buried threw another shovel of dirt onto that old family feud, and it's long been laid to rest. It's of no consequence to tell Derek a few secrets of his own. "My family has an emergency underground bunker on the south side of town."

Derek gives him an incredulous look. Chris shrugs.

"It's got...a cot," he says. "Ethernet. A twelve-inch steel door." His favorite feature. "I'll show you around sometime. Give you the grand tour." Fair's fair, after all.

The sex hasn't changed much either. Whenever they get around to it, early or late, Derek is still quick and eager to get his mouth on Chris, and he's still just as subtle and careful about getting permission to do it first.

"You don't have to—" Chris gasps, tightening his fingers in Derek's hair as Derek drags his tongue up the underside of his cock. "—ask, every time, if you don't want to—this is great, blanket permission."

"I want to," Derek says, and with one hand pins Chris's hips to the wall. And then: "You talk too much." And he takes Chris in his mouth until his lips meet Chris's torso.

" _Fuck_ ," Chris all but shouts. Derek gets better at that every day.

Derek lifts off, looking pleased. "Tell me when you're close," he says, and doesn't speak again.

Because even after everything, if he can make it work, he still likes to kiss Chris as he comes.

The first couple of nights, Chris offers to return the favor—it worked out for them once, didn't it?—but each time Derek declines, and still shies away from most touch below his shoulders, so Chris stops asking. He doesn't want to push, and he's not going to _beg_. There's no reason to rock the boat when what they've got now works. It's good. It's fantastic, actually—

Or it would be, if not for the nightmares.

Not _Derek's_ nightmares. Oh, when they were traveling, he had them all the time—thrashed himself awake, wouldn't let Chris near him afterwards or even sleep near Chris for fear his tenuous control over his new anchor would snap. But Chris hasn't seen him have a single one since the green wolfsbane, hasn't seen so much as a hint of any trouble with control. Hell, they share the bed at night, Derek usually even opting to lay half on-top of Chris with one arm flung over his middle.

No, the one who has all trouble these days is Chris. Now that he's finally remembered what really happened to Riley, he can't seem to stop, even when he sleeps. It waits for him every time he closes his eyes: the prick of claws against his hips, the way he would have slipped on Riley's blood and fallen had Gerard not had him by the hair, the exact retching sound Riley made when he tried to speak. And the body, after. Skull caved in, covered in blood, those dark eyes still half-open even in death, accusatory stare boring right into the naked and ashamed heart of him—

"Chris. Chris!"

Chris jerks awake, panicked and confused, breath coming in uneven gasps. "I'm sorry—I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"

Someone has him by the face. He flinches back. He's got to get away, he doesn't want to see— "It's me," says Derek, holding on, and Chris's vision focuses a little. "Hey hey hey—you're okay, you're okay. Look at me."

Chris does, blinking fast. "Derek." He fumbles for Derek's wrists by instinct, relieved; he was half-expecting to see someone else.

"Yeah." Derek strokes with his thumb, a small soothing motion. "You're okay," he says again. His palms bleed warmth into Chris's skin. "Calm down. Breathe."

Chris drags in one long shaking breath, trying to slow the racing of his heart while he waits for the fear to recede. " _Fuck_ ," he says, and lets go of Derek to smack the bed next to him in frustration. "Goddammit." He's shuddering violently, but his hands in particular tremble when he reaches up to wipe his eyes—because even after half a lifetime without it, he's crying now.

"Sorry I woke you," he says at last, but it's no surprise. The only night he spent here without waking Derek was the first one. Sometimes it's only once, but sometimes it's more. For years—decades—if he had a bad dream, he would lock down, be so rigid and silent that when he woke his breath was frozen in his lungs. Now whatever self-control he used to have is shot to hell. "I can—" He hesitates, swallowing hard. "I don't have to keep staying all night. I can let you get some sleep."

That's part of their routine too. Chris makes the offer, and Derek— "I told you I don't mind." He's frowning at Chris in concern, an expression Chris is quickly growing to hate. "I'm more worried about your sleep."

Chris blows out a sigh, trying not to appear too outwardly relieved. He can admit, if only to himself, that he's glad Derek doesn't want him to go; without the points of contact between Derek's skin and his own, he's sure he'd lie awake the whole night through.

In the mornings, Chris tries and usually fails to load his guns. His hands tremble nonstop—and just his luck, it seems to get worse when he's holding bullets—and most of the time he doubts he could chamber a round to save his life. Sometimes with enough persistence and retries he can do one or two, but without taking an hour to do it, the whole magazine is out of the question. So, every morning, Derek winds up doing it for him.

And then he disappears to shower, and while he does say _See you_ , what he means is _See you tonight_ ; what he really means is _Don't be here when I get out._

It seems to Chris that despite whatever they do at night, Derek doesn't want Chris around all day. Chris can't exactly figure out what the disconnect is; why Derek will let Chris get so tactile in the evenings but barely look at him the next morning—but they have time now, and maybe with enough time, he'll come to understand. In the meantime, he's not about to fuck it up by hanging around when he isn't welcome, so after Derek reloads his gun and disappears, so too does Chris.

And that's when the hard part of his day begins.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the homicides in Beacon County have slowed to a halt since the Benefactor's list was put out of commission, and that leaves Chris with very little to do. It's a first: even during his brief stab at retirement, making sure Allison was fed something besides microwave dinners three times a day might as well have been a full-time job all by itself. He passes some of the time trying to find a place to live, but that task is complicated by his injuries, and the fact that he can't be out in public right now without getting dangerously jumpy.

So what he does instead is try to rest, recover. He scans the papers for anything that seems like it needs a hunter's touch, and waits until it's time to see Derek again.

And in-between all that, he practices loading and unloading his guns, even with shaking hands, even though he can't use them—because spending so much time in the bunker reminds him of something Gerard used to say:

_You'll never know when you need it._

 

* * *

 

Derek was right: it _would_ be a bad idea for Chris to try and shut down to avoid how much he's hurting. But Chris literally doesn't know how else to deal with it—every waking minute, there's something, and the only thing he ever learned to do was try to pretend it wasn't happening. Without that, he's in over his head.

Nightmares and hypervigilance are things he's dealt with his whole life, but that's just the beginning. He'll have one moment where it's all he can do not to pick a fight with Derek for absolutely no reason, and later the same day swing back around to crying at the drop of a hat, and not being able to stop. Sometimes he gets sleepy and sluggish like he's been drugged, so lost in thought it takes him hours to realize he's been staring at the wall the entire time. Others, he gets sudden and inexplicable jumps in his heartbeat, racing like he's been hit with green wolfsbane himself.

Near-constant dread plagues him: his instincts keep screaming at him that something terrible is about to happen, and for once in his life Chris has to ignore them because he knows better: the terrible thing has already happened, and he was the one responsible. It's just that same state of mind, back with a vengeance from twenty-three years ago.

And then there are the tremors in his hands; depending on how bad it is at any given moment, he can't load a gun, button his clothes, send a text, or use utensils. If it came down to a fight, Chris wouldn't be useful, he'd be a liability, and that eats at him more than anything else, because he made a promise to protect this town, and he intends to keep it. The hand tremors, he thinks, are surely the worst.

Then, one afternoon, he wakes up with a few hours of his memory missing.

Like waking without ever going to sleep, he gradually becomes aware he's lying faceup on the cot staring at the ceiling. There's a quick readjustment—must've been lost in thought, now what was he doing again?—but when he reaches for the answer there's nothing there.

Chris sits bolt upright, giving himself a shake. How did he get here? He scrambles to check the time. Only a few hours since he remembers leaving Derek's. He was so slow and sluggish down in the tunnels, leaning his head against the door to the bunker as he unlocked it because of how exhausted the simple walk from the car left him. Then...

Nothing. He doesn't remember lying down, or going to sleep, if he did sleep. He feels numb and hungover, like he spent all night getting wasted, but he hasn't had a drink since coming back to California. Did he leave? He doesn't think so; the most logical conclusion to draw would be that sheer exhaustion had him come in and drop off while he was already half-asleep. But he can't know for sure. He swallows, taking in the bunker inch by inch. But nothing seems out of place—nothing, of course, except him.

He looks himself over. He's still wearing the same outfit, there's no bumps or bruises he can't account for...

But clutched in his right hand, in a white knuckle grip, is the pistol he failed to load this morning. Chris sucks in a sharp breath and lets it go as though burned.

He hasn't told Derek about most of this. He answers when asked how he is, sure, and Derek sees the nightmares, but Chris tries to keep quiet about as much as he can. Talking about it won't make it go away, so what's the point? It's easier to manage with when he's in the loft than when he's in the bunker, anyway, and he doesn't like to even think about it; what he remembered, right in front of Derek, makes him ashamed. And maybe—part of him thinks this is a fitting punishment. If he can't shut it down, he might as well endure it without complaint.

Chris is starting to reconsider that decision. If he can't watch out for himself, someone ought to.

He climbs out of the cot and picks the gun back up, tucking it back into his waistband with a heavy sense of dread. Derek was right about Chris's memory, more right than he knows. This was probably just exhaustion—he _hopes_ it was just exhaustion—but it leaves him with this nagging suspicion, and now he can't help but wonder.

What if there's something worse rattling around in there, and he just doesn't know about it anymore?

 

* * *

 

A week to the day after Chris and Derek return to Beacon Hills, he wakes not because of a nightmare, but because Derek is speaking quietly but closeby—still in bed.

"Huh?" Chris asks, still groggy and only half-awake, since for once he isn't being startled out of a dead sleep. "S'goin' on?"

"No one," Derek says, and slides out of bed. "Just the TV."

Chris blinks at his retreating figure, perplexed, and—ah. Phone. He's on the phone. Chris isn't sure who he's talking to, but his responses are short and clipped.

"A while," he says, and pauses. "She's dead." Pause. "I did." Pause. "A fire."

Unbelievable. Derek Hale is more efficient with his words than anybody Chris has ever met. He sits up—slowly, his chest aches something awful in the mornings and he doesn't want to have to fight with Derek about it later—and blinks sleep out of his eyes. Whoever it is must be asking about Kate.

"I didn't," says Derek. "The Calaveras." He sighs, exasperated, and throws a glance in Chris's direction. "Long story."

Clearly, he's hoping to spare Chris some of the gory details. Chris wishes he wouldn't. The few minutes he lost when he blacked out from the smoke inhalation continue to eat at him. Did Kate say anything about him? Was she sorry? Was she angry? How long did she suffer? Only Derek knows. Twice now Chris has passed out in a world where his sister lived and woken up to find she died. There's some part of him that's still half-convinced she'll be back again someday, except of course Derek never would have come back home if he wasn't certain. _How_ he's so certain, he won't say. The few times Chris has dared to ask about it, Derek's given as little information as possible and quickly changed the subject. Someday, when Chris is less of a wreck, he's going to push it. For now, he doesn't have it in him to fight both his own fucked up brain and Derek too.

"If you want," Derek is saying now. A strange expression crosses his face, and he gives Chris a once-over. "You ask him," he says, one corner of his mouth turning up, and for a heart-stopping moment Chris thinks Derek is actually going to hand him the phone. Then he adds, "I just can't seem to hang on to his number."

Only a lifetime of discipline and training keeps Chris quiet. Derek has no such thing to fall back on and has to bite back his smile as he says goodbye and hangs up. "That was Scott," he starts, crossing his arms, but Chris's phone buzzes. Sure enough, his screen brings up Scott's picture.

"Hey Mr. Argent," Scott greets, as soon as Chris picks up. "Listen, I heard you were back in town? So I was thinking—"

Chris interrupts him. "And how exactly did you hear that?"

"Well, we all heard Derek howl the other night, but we...couldn't agree on whether or not it was him," Scott says. "Then Stiles' dad saw you riding that bike through town yesterday." He pauses. "The, uh, really cool-sounding red one?" He clears his throat. "Anyway—why didn't you tell anyone you were here? We've all been wondering if you guys were okay."

The only answer Chris can give is an honest one. "Completely slipped my mind." He's been so occupied with keeping his shit together he hasn't thought about social niceties. It didn't even occur to him that any of the kids would seriously worry—about Derek, yes, but not about him. The bigger question is why _Derek_ didn't say anything.

"Well," says Scott, sounding doubtful, "I was thinking maybe you and me and Derek could go get lunch? We could, you know, swap stories. It's been mostly quiet here— _mostly_ —but when I tried to ask Derek what happened on your end—" Scott blows out a sigh, and Chris meets Derek's eyes, suddenly reminded that Derek's super senses allow him to hear every single word. "You know how he gets, those one-word answers you have to pry out of him—"

"Yes, I do," Chris agrees lightly, and Derek rolls his eyes.

"Anyway, I have work at the clinic all day today, but you guys could totally meet me there for my lunch break? If you wanted?"

He sounds so hopeful Chris would hate to say no. He lifts his eyebrows at Derek, who shrugs his assent. "I don't see why not," Chris says. "You break at twelve?"

"Twelve-thirty," says Scott. "Come through the delivery entrance, so we don't have to work around the ash wood. See you then!"

After Chris hangs up, there's a short silence, one where Chris imagines they both contemplate how close they nearly came just now to complete disaster.

At last Derek deadpans, "Those were two-word answers."

Jesus, Chris is too old for this. He drops back on the bed, one arm flung over his eyes. "Very funny."

 

* * *

 

When Chris left Beacon Hills for what he thought was the last time, he hired movers to take care of the old apartment. He couldn't bear to be the one to go into Allison's bedroom, take down all her carefully hung decorations, sort through her photos and old schoolwork, figure out what to do with her vast and treasured collection of shoes. All of that would have taken _time_ , and he wanted to be away from Beacon Hills as quickly as possible. He removed the weapons to avoid arousing suspicion, took a few keepsakes with him for the trip to France—and as for the rest, everything he couldn't fit into a couple of suitcases went into one of the storage units his family owns here in town. When he came back, it was abrupt and unexpected, and he didn't intend to stay, let alone get settled. He never saw any point in going back for his things.

Which all means that right now, he has no photos of his family.

Allison's been dead and buried for three and a half months, and in all that time he hasn't once seen her face, even in photos. He didn't take any with him. He didn't want to look; it hurts to remember the dead. But when he came back...

When he came back, it was to find Kate. Kate, who wasn't dead after all. Her picture was on the front page of _The Beacon Hills Chronicle_ in an article they published about the fire after her death. Chris printed that the day he got back, and kept it pinned on the corkboard along with clues to her whereabouts, articles about all the people she'd killed—so he couldn't look at her without remembering.

Finding out that a family member once thought dead is in fact alive should be a joyous occasion, but Chris can't think of anything more painful. If it had been Allison, Victoria, even Gerard—that would have been easier. But Kate? From the very beginning, Chris knew the odds of stopping her without killing her were astronomically low, that he would just have to lose her all over again.

He'd have to grieve all over again.

Chris pushes the bunker door shut with a loud scrape over the floor behind him, and slides the many locks closed. He's been avoiding thinking and talking about Kate because he just wasn't ready—but now his time's up. Later today he's going to have to explain to Scott why he helped kill his own sister, and he's going to come up short.

Chris eases his coat off and walks over to the corkboard, eyes moving from one newspaper clipping to another. These are good reasons, right? What Derek said about Kate just before she attacked them at the riverside is true: she placed no value on life, human or otherwise. It's one thing to kill in self-defense, or out of lack of control. It's another thing to do it without remorse, or even to enjoy it. Violence, at best, was a means to an end for Kate. At worst, it was something she took savage pleasure in. Chris believes in second chances—he's seen too many people meet Scott McCall as an enemy and walk away as an ally not to know it's possible, himself included—but it _isn't_ possible to save someone who doesn't want to be saved. Who won't try. And as many times as Chris had tried to get through to her, to find another way, Kate never made a single effort towards change.

Did Chris do the right thing? It's impossible for him to try and look at objectively; she's his sister, no matter what she does, and part of him will always think that he should have done whatever it took to bring her home alive. But Chris doesn't know if there's a prison out there capable of holding Kate, and if he'd want to resign her to a lifetime in its walls if there was. Not only would she have hated it more than dying, but if she _wasn't_ his sister, there would be no part of him that would believe she was worth saving. There would be no question at all.

Chris begins pulling tacks out of the corkboard, stacking the articles in his still-shaking hands. The corkboard, and Kate's picture, are right at eye level, easily visible from the door. If he does wind up showing Derek around, this should hardly be the first thing he sees.

He pauses, hand hovering over the last item on the board, the photo. Kate, still human, still alive, looks at him over her shoulder, waiting.

The truth is maybe they _could_ have taken her alive, if not for the fire the Calaveras set. For all Chris knows, it might have still been possible even then. But—

Even if Chris asked him to, Derek would never, ever have stopped, not until he saw Kate dead, and no one, even Chris, can say he wasn't justified in that sentiment. So maybe the most terrible truth is that Chris chose to prioritize Derek's feelings over Kate's life. Or worse, maybe a part of Chris wanted her dead, too, even before Derek told him about her darkest, ugliest crimes. Maybe Chris just wanted it to be over: the sheer hopelessness and despair in reaching out again and again to someone he loved once, when he had finally resigned himself to knowing that she'd die before she reached back.

Chris can never decide how to feel when he thinks of Kate—angry about the terrible things she's done, or guilty that somewhere along the way, he gave up on her. But he does know one thing, however much it breaks his heart.

Chris takes one last look at Kate, eyes stinging. _You really weren't worth saving_ , he thinks, and takes the picture down, crumpling it up in his palm.

 

* * *

 

It doesn't take Chris long to figure out that today's one of those days he's been thinking of as green wolfsbane days. It's because of the racing heart—on days like these, he's jumpy, easily overstimulated, and shakes as though he's suffering withdrawal, though he's never once battled any kind of substance addiction. It was this kind of day when he almost pulled his gun on the real estate agent. When he's like this, he can't be in public; every loud noise might as well be dynamite.

He can't bring himself to back out of lunch with Scott and Derek, though; how would he explain it? So he tries to rest, instead, hoping being still and quiet will calm him the hell down. Pure exhaustion does somehow manage to have him nodding off just after midmorning, but he dozes a little too long and winds up leaving the bunker around the time he's supposed to be showing up at the clinic. Chris, who is typically fifteen minutes early to everything, is late to meet Scott, and just that small stressor undoes any progress he made towards finding calm. The entire morning was a waste.

Derek's Camaro is already parked out back near the delivery entrance. The doors to the clinic are made of metal—no ash wood, Scott said. Perhaps that's a courtesy to the werewolf working there; it would be easy enough to arm a single doorway from inside, just like Scott's own home.

Chris's hands shake especially badly today. He drops his keys halfway to his pocket, and his hand rattles the door handle. Nonetheless, Derek and Scott don't seem to hear him enter over the noise that animals tend to make. They're already deep in conversation somewhere in the front by the time Chris cracks open the door.

"...and you seriously, _seriously_ , came back from the dead as a real wolf, turned into a person again, and killed a berserker with your bare hands, in front of all those hunters, _totally naked_?"

Chris rounds the corner in time to see Derek, from his place by the counter, fail to hide a smirk. "Oh, well, I would have asked them to wait and let me get dressed, but I was busy trying not to die again."

Scott is next to him, counting money at the cash register; he pauses to very pointedly roll his eyes at Derek. "I mean, I just can't believe nobody _shot_ you, man. I met Araya, remember? She does _not_ mess around." Scott looks just like he did when they left, though perhaps a bit taller, and his hair's gotten a little longer. Seventeen and still growing like a weed. He puts the money in the cash register and locks it. The sign on the front window is already flipped to _CLOSED_ —for whatever good that usually does. "Man, I wish I could have seen it. The, uh, wolf part, I mean. That's _so_ badass." He sounds a little jealous.

Neither of them have noticed Chris yet. It's sunny today, and very nearly warm, and the light pouring in through the front window gives the two of them a peaceful look. It's such a nice, normal moment, so at odds with how his life has been since Allison died, that Chris is reluctant to put himself in it. Once he does, it will be over.

"I'll show you sometime," Derek says, "when I don't have to worry about being seen." He pauses. "Actually, I usually run around the preserve on full moons..." He leaves the rest of the sentence open.

Scott jumps in right away. "That sounds _awesome_ , could I—" He clears his throat. "I mean, would you...totally hate having company, next time?"

Derek shrugs one shoulder, the very picture of nonchalance. "If you don't think you'll get too bored." There's a short silence. Chris, figuring he's gone over the reasonable amount of time someone can eavesdrop without being creepy, draws breath to speak, but then Derek says, very quietly, "Scott, there's something I need to ask you."

"Sure," Scott says, looking surprised.

Derek looks down to inspect his nails, and starts, "When Kate took you and Kira from the loft, did she—" His pause is nearly imperceptible. "—do anything else?"

Holy shit. Chris's blood runs cold, but Scott just screws his face up in confusion and asks, "Uh, did you miss the part where she _turned me into a berserker_ so I'd _murder all my friends_?"

Chris feels his heartrate return to normal, and Derek's shoulders slump just slightly in relief—but they stiffen right back up again when Scott says, "We told you about all that after Kate ran off, though. Did you mean something else?"

"You can't blame me for being preoccupied," Derek says, which is a total nonanswer. "Considering I had only been alive for an hour at the time." His tone is perfectly casual, but his gaze skitters away from Scott—and lands on Chris.

Derek's expression shifts from surprise to defiance, and with nothing more than that look, a flicker of grim understanding passes between them. Now, Chris thinks, is the time to speak. "Scott."

Scott turns to where Chris is leaned against the doorway, and brightens instantly. "Mr. Argent!" Then, as Chris steps into the light, he does a double-take. "Whoa, what happened to you? Uh, no offense, but you've definitely looked better."

"Might have cracked a couple of ribs," Chris finally admits, and Derek scowls. Scott, for his part, is gentle when he goes in for the inevitable hug.

Chris pats his shoulder. It's good to see him again. "Sorry I'm late."

"No big deal. The doc's started taking more weekends off, so I'm in charge," Scott says proudly. "Make my own hours. Sit down, man, I'll lock up the dogs and we can go grab some grub."

Scott vanishes into the back, and Chris, grateful, takes a seat in one of the chairs behind the counter.

Derek sits next to him, looking concerned. "You do look terrible," he says, keeping his voice low.

"I'm aware, thank you," Chris says tightly.

"I don't just mean beat up. You look dead on your feet. Thousand-yard-stare." Derek glances at the doorway, then takes one of Chris's trembling hands in both of his own and starts draining Chris's pain.

It doesn't even occur to Chris to bat him away, but it's largely ineffective anyway. Right now the skin-to-skin contact feels like grabbing onto a live wire. The noise doesn't help, either; a vet's office is never truly quiet, but the dogs are all making a racket because Scott's back there with them.

"Bad day," Chris admits, keeping his voice low too, and pinches the bridge of his nose. He's so tired.

The skittering of claws has Chris's head jerking up, but it's just a big brown floppy-eared mutt, clearly escaped from the pen. "Scott'll be looking for you," Chris murmurs, and absently reaches out to pat it. He grew up with a lot of dogs.

Derek raises his voice. "Scott, you've got a stray!"

"One second!"

Chris grits his teeth. The shouting doesn't cause him pain, exactly, but it's like hearing something shrill or loud, and it seems to drive right into his skull.

The dog licks his hand, tail thumping happily against the floor. Chris indulges it, stroking his thumb over its forehead between its eyes, and it shoves its head onto his lap and rests it there, looking peacefully up at him.

Big brown eyes. Trusting.

_Anything that dangerous, that out of control..._

Abruptly Chris's stomach turns over. It shouldn't be any surprise; all his thoughts seem to lead back to this one way or another. But somehow his wires have all gotten crossed, and this quickly tumbles down into something impossibly worse. He remembers, he heard Kate say it—the day she had her gun aimed at Scott, she hesitated: _I love those brown eyes._ Reluctant, like it was a shame to see them go to waste. Not the first time she said it, not in front of him—but Derek was there too. Derek heard. And Derek had truly felt the need to ask, just a moment ago, just to be _sure_ , if Kate had—if she had—

Chris can't catch his breath. "Chris?" Derek asks.

Kate holding the gun on Scott. And Chris: horrified by what she was doing, trying to get her to feel that horror too. But why would she listen to him? She saw what he did. She knew the whole time, even when he didn't. How satisfied she would have been, to know that not a week later it was him standing in her place—that he wasn't so above it after all.

For just one moment, he's not in the clinic anymore. He's back there in that field, where he almost killed Scott McCall. And there next to him is Allison, clear as day, tears in her eyes as she begs him not to shoot. But when he looks down past the barrel of his gun, it's not Scott he sees.

Chris bolts up to his feet, and the image disappears.

Fucked up, this is _fucked up_ , she had _nothing_ to do with that, and thank God—

"Chris." Derek touches his shoulder, worried. Chris flinches, full-body. "What do you need?"

Chris has to take a moment to swallow down his nausea. "I—I gotta go," he rasps. He can't look at Scott right now. If not for Allison, Chris _would_ have killed him. When Allison wasn't there, he took the shot. Even though Riley was technically a teenager too, even though he hadn't hurt anyone either. That's just the kind of person Chris is. "I gotta go," he repeats, and just barely has the presence of mind to add, "See you," on his way out the door—not so Derek won't worry, but so he won't follow.

He manages to drive almost an entire mile before he has to pull over to throw up.

 

* * *

 

Chris makes it to the bunker a couple of hours later, dazed and exhausted. He wanted to come down right away, just shut out the world for a little while, but something about the thought of being in some suffocating underground room spiked his anxiety. He spent a very long time sitting in the driver's seat of his car with the windows cracked and nursing a bottle of water, just fighting with himself.

But he's here now, and he's not the only one; Derek waits for him by the twelve-inch steel door, leaning against the tunnel wall with his arms folded.

"What the hell are you doing here," Chris sighs, getting out his keys and moving to unlock the door.

"Tracked you by scent." Derek shrugs. "Wasn't hard."

He could have tried _calling_. Maybe he did, Chris wouldn't know—he's been ignoring his phone. "I hope you didn't stand Scott up." There are a lot of locks on this door, and they always take a long time to open when his hands shake too badly to aim the key.

"Scott's not the one I'm worried about right now. Was it the dog?"

"I'm all right."

"Clearly."

Chris misses the third lock for the second time and grits his teeth against a sudden surge of fury. Derek's the one who pointed out Chris shouldn't just numb himself to all of this. And he's right, he is but— "Look, what else do you want from me? I'm not dead yet, so—"

"Thanks for that," Derek says, pushing away from the wall, "that's a really reassuring statement and I'm not worried anymore—"

Chris drops his keys, swears, and then slams his fist against the door. The _bang_ echoes and reverberates through the empty tunnels. "I murdered him," Chris says, throat tightening dangerously. He keeps his eyes on the door. "I _murdered_ him. And in front of all those people, Jesus, it was like a fucking execution. He _begged_ me—"

He can feel Derek's gaze on him. Derek asks, tone gentled a little, "And what else were you supposed to do, exactly?"

"I was supposed to _go_ to him!" Chris's voice breaks. He doesn't want to think about this, let alone talk about it, but he doesn't know how to stop. "He was dying and terrified, and I didn't offer him a bit of comfort, didn't apologize or even say goodbye—God, the kind of _person_ that makes me, just living with myself makes me sick—" He has to stop to wipe his eyes, and finally looks at Derek. "You know, I was thinking about it the other day, and I have no idea what happened to his body?"

Derek's expression isn't quite pitying, but it's too close for Chris's liking. "Chris..."

"My head is so fucked," Chris says, "that I don't know down from up. Who knows what else I've done, if there's something even worse I just can't remember? I can't put anything past myself, can I? And then for all I know we dumped him in the lake and let the fish have him, or put him in a bathtub full of acid—"

Derek grimaces, swallowing visibly. "And I buried my sister in pieces in an unmarked grave, what's the point in—"

"Exactly!" Chris smacks the door with his fist again, not as hard this time. "A good man would have buried him! A good man would have _gone_ to him." He gets quiet. "I don't think there's any good in me," he says, head hung. "Killing him would have been bad enough. What I did was cowardly. It was cruel."

Derek looks him over for a moment, then reaches out to rest his hand on Chris's shoulder. He ducks his head a little to meet Chris's eye. "I've seen cruel," he offers. "You're not it."

Chris shakes his head.

There's a long pause, and at last Derek says, "Chris, maybe you need—you know, help."

Chris shakes himself free. "Oh, what, go to supernatural therapy?" He lets out a laugh, half-hysterical. "It's not like they can give me a _service dog_ —"

Derek sighs through his nose. "Okay, okay—" He stoops down to pick up Chris's keys. "Look, forget it. I didn't go anywhere either. Just..." He shakes his head. "Forget it," he says again, and holds out the keys. "You going to let me in, or not?"

Chris fumbles for the keys and stares at them a moment, wondering if he even has it in him right now to unlock the damn door. His only other option is asking Derek to do it, though, so he summons some of that Argent self-discipline and unlocks it anyway. It takes him a few tries, but Derek, mercifully, doesn't offer to help.

"This is it," Chris says, pushing the door open. "Not much to look at, but you'd have a hell of a time trying to break in."

"Not so hard to find, though," Derek says, in the tone he usually uses for their gentle competitive ribbing, and the familiarity of it eases a little of Chris's misery. He sits heavily on the cot, watching Derek make a circle around the room. Derek examines Chris's space the same way Chris has been examining his, taking in all the weapons and maps on the walls. Unlike Derek's home, though, this place really is as bare as it looks at first glance. Kate's photo—and thank God that's not still here—was the only personal touch.

"Fancy, right?" Chris asks, as Derek finishes.

"Mm." Derek sits next to him on the cot; there's not a lot of room, so their shoulders touch, but the sensation is welcome, now, instead of overwhelming. Derek is always so warm.

Chris scrubs his face with his hands. "Derek, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing here," he whispers. "This is all I think about—all the time. I can't make it stop."

"Too much downtime," Derek says. "No threat over our heads, nothing to keep us busy...for what it's worth, I'm crawling the walls myself. I'm not used to having nothing to do. Too much time to think. Especially when—" He checks himself, and glances over at Chris. "You're dealing with something."

"No kidding."

Derek shifts next to him on the cot. "You really sleep on this? No wonder you always smell like you're in pain."

Chris sighs. "Derek, not right now."

Derek sighs too, thumping his head back against the wall.

"You don't have to keep _doing_ that. You were drugged, you had no control—"

Derek scoffs. "You have no idea how much control I had. I stopped in the end, didn't I?"

"You can't blame yourself for something someone else made you do," Chris insists. Derek lifts his eyebrows, and Chris looks away. "That's different. I'm just saying—"

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does! Look, I'm not going to—"

"No—" Derek looks pained. "I mean it doesn't _matter_. That's not why I'm doing it." It's Chris turn to look skeptical, and Derek throws up his hands, annoyed. "Not the _only_ reason—"

"Oh, this isn't guilt?" Chris asks. "Then enlighten me, please, what other reason could there possibly be?"

Derek's jaw works. He draws breath to speak, but can't seem to find the words. For a moment, he looks so angry Chris is reminded of Derek as he was when they first met, and he's certain Derek will either throw a punch or walk out.

But Derek doesn't hit him, and Derek doesn't leave. Instead he takes Chris's chin in one hand, and leans in to press their mouths together. It's not like most of the kisses they exchange before sex. It's slow and deep, with Derek's thumb stroking Chris's jawline. It's a long time before it breaks.

Chris says, "Oh."

Derek won't look at him. "I don't do it," he says, measuring every word, "for just anyone."

Chris thinks about all the times Derek's done it for him—even back when things were much more casual than they are now. He thinks of how distant Derek seemed when they first got back home, how distant Derek still seems in the mornings, and how, all this time, he's been shrugging Derek off. Maybe, to Derek, he seemed like the one who was being distant.

Chris isn't sure what to say, so he goes with, "Thank you." It's—no small thing, to be not _just_ _anyone_ to Derek Hale. That reason, he can accept.

Derek rolls his eyes, huffing out some incredulous sound that isn't quite a laugh. "Yeah, good talk." Then he claps Chris on the shoulder and stands. "Since I know you made it back in one piece, I'm gonna go."

 _Too bad_ , Chris thinks, but aloud he says, "Yeah."

"You want my advice? Sleep it off if you can. You'll be up all night either way." Derek pauses at the door. "Thanks for the tour," he adds. "See you."

"See you," Chris agrees, and gets up to lock the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

Derek's apartment building has a functioning laundry room in the basement.

It makes sense, logically enough: most of Derek's clothes wind up getting stained or shredded in fights, but the ones that don't have to be washed _somewhere_ , and Chris hasn't seen any machines up in the loft. He figured the basement would be a good a place as any to look.

He came looking because he needs to do his own laundry; he only has a few outfits, and by now they're all disgusting. While the bunker is equipped with a shower stall in the bathroom, one he spent nearly an hour and a half in earlier trying to find some equilibrium, there's certainly no room for a washing machine or dryer. He intended to follow Derek's suggestion and sleep, wait until tonight to ask to borrow the machines; Derek has seen much more of him than usual today, so he may already be wearing out his welcome. But the sensation of dirty clothes against clean skin went from bearable to unbearable intensely and without any warning, so here he is. He'll just have to hope Derek doesn't hear him.

At least it's still light out. At night, the corners of this building get dark enough to make him wary, but right now, just enough late afternoon sun filters in through the ground-level windows to leave it mostly visible. The sound of the rusty old dryer turning his clothes over and over covers all the little creaks of an old building settling and any sudden sounds from the city outside. It's peaceful and ordinary enough that it drops Chris's anxiety to a level that's very nearly manageable.

The only place to sit while he waits is a large saggy-looking couch several feet away from the machines closest to the door. Next to it sits a squat footstool missing one leg, with an empty disposable coffee cup, a notepad and stubby pencil, and a couple of books on top. Chris lays both his guns down next to them and drops to the couch with the heaviness that comes from sheer exhaustion and the pain of healing injuries, surprised to find it's actually quite comfortable. Curious, careful not to lose Derek's place, he picks up the topmost book on the stool, overturned on the other one, and leafs through it. He has to blink at it a few times before he realizes he's not losing his mind: it's in Greek. He turns it over to check the cover. _The Iliad_. Chris huffs out a little laugh. The other book, he realizes, is a Greek dictionary.

The machinery in the elevator shaft begins to move.

Chris's heart jumps into his throat. It's almost certainly Derek—who else would it be?—but he gets to his feet, hand inching towards his weapons just in case. He's all right. He has a clear line of sight to the door, and if anyone who _isn't_ Derek walks through it, at this range even he can't miss.

But it is Derek, wearing a ratty t-shirt and sweatpants, hair rumpled as though he's just woken up. Chris lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and lets his hand drop away from the stool. He is suddenly acutely aware he is wearing nothing but his boxers.

"I thought I heard someone come in," Derek says, in spite of the fact that he lives on the thirteenth floor.

Chris spreads his hands—busted—and sits back down. "Sorry. No machines in the bunker." He could have gone to a laundromat, but his hands are shaking too badly to feed coins into a slot, and he doesn't really trust himself to be around other people yet. He's already gone all to pieces once today, and he doesn't need a repeat performance, especially not with an audience.

But Derek doesn't seem annoyed by his presence. In point of fact, he comes in and sits on the couch next to Chris, glancing at the machines on the way. "You're gonna be waiting on that awhile." He nods at the dryer. "It's on its last legs."

Of course it is. Derek's entire living situation is absolutely incomprehensible—just like Derek himself, sometimes. "Can I ask you something? Kind of personal."

Derek's laugh sounds a little incredulous. "Shoot."

"This basement," says Chris, "looks like you're squatting in it. You have _millions_ of dollars to your name, why the hell do you live in a run-down apartment building with no one in it?"

Derek tips his head back to rest on the back of the couch, crossing his arms behind his head. "I can't exactly live at my house," he points out, and his expression turns a bit wistful: like he really would still be haunting those old ruins, if he only could. "I knew someone would come for me eventually—the alpha pack, or..." He glances sideways at Chris. "Hunters. I didn't want things to get messier than they had to. I needed a place to live that didn't involve other people. I liked this building because it's tall, empty, and out of the way—so I bought it."

That's an interesting kind of learned helplessness. If it's not possible to stop the bad from coming, the only alternative is to be ready when it gets there. It certainly explains why Derek has an alarm, but no locks.

Or maybe Derek just likes being by himself. He seems perfectly fine right now, but Chris still can't shake the nagging feeling that he's overstepping. "Well, it'll be empty again soon. I just need them dry enough to wear home."

Derek gives him a perplexed look. "Take your time. I don't have anywhere to be."

Incomprehensible, Chris thinks again, at a loss. Try as he might, some things about Derek Hale remain impossible to understand. Most of the time that's not a dealbreaker—Chris learned early on that he doesn't necessarily have to _understand_ the lines Derek draws to stay on the right _side_ of them—but how is he supposed to respect Derek's boundaries when he can't even figure out what they are? "I thought," Chris says pointedly, "that you preferred to spend the day alone."

Derek lets out a low laugh, head tipping back into the couch again, which does nothing for Chris's growing sense of irritation. "I don't care if you use the machines."

"The m—" Chris has to stop and take a deep breath. The two of them are clearly having different conversations; the best he can do is speak plain. "Look, you've made it pretty clear you want me to leave in the mornings, and that's fine, but—"

Derek groans, throwing an arm over his eyes.

"I can't tell if you want me around or not, Derek." Chris is trying not to take it personally, but it's hard.

There is a very long pause. Finally Derek says, "You want to know the other reason I liked this building so much?"

Jesus. "You know, you are so damn hard to have a conversation with sometimes—"

Derek lifts his arm up enough to give Chris an annoyed look. It's the face he usually wears when he wants Chris to shut up.

Chris heaves a sigh and shuts up, leaning back against the couch himself. It's soft; he sinks right into it. It'd be more pleasant if it smelled less like dust. Derek doesn't talk much—not really _talk_. When he does, Chris has to at least try to listen, right? "Tell me," he says. "About the building."

Derek recrosses his arms behind his head. "It reminds me," he says, still with a little bite in his tone, "of the place I lived in New York." He swallows, and his next words come out quieter. "With Laura."

And now Chris is paying attention.

"There wasn't as much space out there," Derek says, "but it wasn't as run-down, either. Just one room, but it was on the top floor. Big open ceiling. Stairs to the roof." He smiles a little, nostalgic. "I'm really not much of a city person, but it was one hell of a view. Laura liked it, anyway. That's where she'd go, every time, after..." He's quiet a moment, eyes tracking motes of dust through the fading sunlight. "After the fire, she used to get these—terrible nightmares. Every night. Sometimes more than once a night. She'd wake up thrashing, shouting, snarling...like mine are, but worse. Sometimes I'd have to hold her down just to keep her from hurting herself, or me. And after she woke up, it wouldn't matter how big the room was. She'd have to go outside and smoke."

Chris's guilt is not useful here, he knows that. He feels it nonetheless. They were both so young. He turns his head. "Derek—"

"My first day of school after the fire," Derek says over him, "I cut class in the middle of the day, just to run back home and make sure she was okay. I didn't tell her I was coming, but..." He shrugs. "She still met me halfway. We just couldn't deal with being separated. We could go—one hour, maybe two. Any longer and we'd both panic, no matter how irrational it was. We worked up to a full school day eventually, but it took months, and we never really got used to it." Derek gets quiet again. "I'm still not used to it." He blinks fast and clears his throat. "Because sometimes, when you spend every waking minute with someone, it is—" A muscle works in his jaw. "Really, really hard to stop."

Oh. _Oh._ Shit, that makes a lot more sense. Chris can't help think of that restless, lonely feeling that defined his first night spent back in Beacon Hills, the one that drew him towards Derek's place even though he was sure Derek wouldn't even be home. It was only a month, but they went through a lot together in that short time. The Calaveras, the green wolfsbane, the secrets they'd shared with one another, _Kate_ —all the while, feeling a little bit like the only two people in the whole world.

Before Chris can begin to form any kind of reply to this revelation, Derek says, "But I didn't realize it was so bad for you. Maybe you _should_ stay over for awhile, at least until you ride out the worst of it. That's not something to do by yourself."

When Chris looks over, he finds Derek's gaze lingering on the guns he still can't load. "You don't have to worry about that," Chris says. "Hey. You don't. I'm not giving up."

Derek's eyes slide his eyes back over to Chris's face. "You'd be lying if you said you hadn't thought about it."

"Now and then," Chris admits quietly. "But trust me, that's as far as it goes."

"Good." Derek sits up, close enough that their knees are knocking, and takes one of Chris's hands in both of his, just like he did earlier today at the clinic. "You're still in pain." He meets Chris's eyes.

Chris sits up too, uncertain. "Derek—" he starts, but cuts himself off. He squeezes Derek's hand. "Not because you feel obligated, okay?" he says. "That other reason." The one Derek couldn't even to put a name to, because it still feels too new to name.

Derek squeezes back. "Fair enough," he agrees, and immediately Chris feels the dizzying sensation of Derek draining his pain.

Chris bows his head to look at their joined hands, the black running from his veins into Derek's. Derek's head is bowed too, so their foreheads are nearly touching, but his eyes are closed, his breathing just a little labored. Chris wonders how it feels, for Derek—if he feels the pain of cracked bones just as Chris does, or if it's something milder, limited to where the darkness bleeds into his flesh.

Once Chris can take a full breath again, he lays his free hand over Derek's. "Okay," he murmurs, and Derek's eyes open. "Hey. Thank you."

One side of Derek's mouth turns up. His face is so close, and it feels good not to be in pain anymore; Chris thinks nothing of leaning in to press his lips against Derek's. He means for it to be short, an expression of gratitude more than anything else, and an acknowledgement of the unnamed thing between them. But Derek deepens the kiss, bringing his hands up to Chris's jaw, and presses in closer.

Chris wasn't expecting it, but he doesn't mind. He hums in the back of his throat, hands ghosting down Derek's sides, before sneaking up to the smooth warm skin beneath his shirt. Derek turns and swings one of his legs over both of Chris's, his weight resting on Chris's thighs. Chris tips his head up into the kissing, letting out a breath through his nose.

"Okay?" Derek murmurs against his lips.

Might as well, right? It's as fine a way to pass the time as any. "Mmm," Chris agrees.

Derek's hands slip down his sides too, but only part of the way. He must be avoiding the places Riley's claws left scars. He runs them back up Chris's sides, and his kisses move to the corner of Chris's mouth, trace a haphazard path over his jaw and to his ear.

He feels Derek's hand press warm against his chest, and slide down towards his stomach. Derek has him pretty pinned, but he still lifts his hips as much as he's able. Then Derek's hand wraps around his cock and squeezes, and Chris lets out a low sound, head falling back into the couch a little. Derek chases him, still kissing; Chris keeps his head tilted back and his lips parted, and gladly lets Derek take what he wants.

Finally, Derek breaks the kiss to ask, "You sure?"

"Sure what?"

"That it's okay."

Chris shivers a little. "Yeah," he says, "why wouldn't I be?"

Derek hesitates, his hands pausing uncertainly. "Uh."

Which is when Chris realizes—thankfully, while Derek is still trying to figure out how to say it in the fewest amount of words possible—that he's not even a little hard.

"Jesus," Chris says, humiliated, turning his face away. Normally by this point he'd be part of the way there, at least. Derek certainly is. But right now there's nothing. Derek withdraws his hand, and Chris wishes he could disappear. "I'm so sorry," he says helplessly, "it's not you—"

Derek lets out a sigh. "You think _I_ don't know that?" He ducks his head to catch Chris's eye, but Chris closes his eyes and won't look at him. "The day you've had, of course your body isn't working right. It doesn't matter—"

"It matters to me!" Chris says, panic edging in. If this is what he has to deal with now, he is having an honest-to-God midlife crisis. If Derek says _it's no big deal_ , Chris is never going to be able to look at him again. He can't believe Derek's still touching him; he feels inadequate, nearly repulsive. If Derek wasn't on top of him, he'd get up and leave. "Sex is—the one good, simple thing I have going for me right now and if I can't—"

Derek makes an irritated noise and tips Chris's face to look at him. "You're not _listening_ to me," he growls, and Chris, surprised, finally shuts up. "It _doesn't_ _matter_." Derek takes a moment to close his eyes, clearly annoyed at having to spell it out. "You don't need that," he says, as though every word pains him, "to have sex."

Oh.

There's a short silence. Derek's right, of course. They had sex for nearly a month without Chris laying a hand on him. He just thought— "Isn't that a one-way situation?"

Derek glances upward, sighing a little. "Not always."

Chris frowns, distracted from his current predicament by this new topic of conversation. He's been wondering about this. "You didn't seem all that interested in trying a second time."

"How would you know?" Derek shoots back. "You stopped asking."

Chris did stop asking; after all, Derek kept saying no. "I didn't want to push."

There's another pause, then Derek's stormy expression reluctantly cracks into something a little less angry. "Don't you think," he sighs, winding an arm around the back of Chris's neck, "that if I thought you were being pushy, _you'd know it_?"

Chris cracks a smile too, and some of the tension lifts. "You've got me there." He's still embarrassed, but he doesn't feel so much anymore like he wants to disappear. He's been wanting to touch Derek again, more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. It might even be—fun, to see what it's usually like for Derek. To take his pleasure solely from someone else's.

"It might not work," Derek warns, "but we can give it a try."

Very suddenly, something clicks for Chris. _Might not work_ —that's always how Derek talks about it, but it strikes Chris now that it's because Derek isn't able to predict or trust his own body. He never has been, not in all the time Chris has known him. Chris thought he understood, before, when Derek explained, slow and stilted: _It doesn't feel good. It actually usually feels the opposite._ But now that Chris has his own visceral experiences for reference he understands a little better. It's not so different: his racing heart, his shaking hands, his panicked breathing—Chris can tell himself it's over all he wants, and logically he understands. But his body still lives in that nightmare moment from twenty-three years ago. And back at the clinic, even though _he_ always welcomes Derek's touch, his _body_ found it intolerable. It really is a total disconnect; a memory made purely in the flesh, without thought. And he can no more master it than he can the biological need for food, water, sleep.

_It makes me feel—I don't know, dread. Like I'm out of control._

Is that what it's like for Derek? Is that what it's like for him all the time?

Derek has begun to look wary. "You're staring," he says.

Chris shakes his head a little. "Sorry," he murmurs, briefly letting his eyes drop. He looks back up and reaches out to run his fingers lightly through the short hair at Derek's temple, draw his thumb over Derek's brow.

Derek lets him. His eyes even slip shut for a moment.

Chris thinks it's always going to hit him this hard: that Derek lets him.

"Derek," he says, and Derek opens his eyes. "Can I kiss you?"

Derek huffs out a laugh. "I _just_ told you you could," he points out. His tone is unimpressed, but for once he's looking at Chris with undisguised fondness, because he said so himself: it matters to him that Chris asks. And God, but Chris wants to ask. With Derek, he really wants to ask.

Chris tips his head up, takes Derek's face in his hands, and draws him down to kiss him.

And just like that, most of the pressure's off. It really _doesn't_ matter what crazy thing Chris's own body is doing; all he has to concern himself with now is Derek's. His palms find the small of Derek's back and run up his spine, bunching up his shirt, and Derek leans back just long enough to peel it off and toss it away.

Then Chris slips his hands under Derek's thighs to shift him off of his lap, onto the couch next to him, and eases him back onto the cushions. Derek lets himself be moved, but he keeps an arm wound around Chris's neck. So Chris goes with him, kissing him all the while. Derek's legs are still hanging partway off of the couch, so Chris reaches down to hook his thumb into the waistband of Derek's sweats.

Derek lifts his hips obligingly, but when Chris breaks contact to pull them off he says, "Just your hands."

There's just the barest trace of anxiety in Derek's tone, as if he thinks Chris has forgotten. Something about the way he says it makes Chris think it may be a permanent stipulation. "Yeah," he agrees easily, as Derek's sweats hit the floor, and some of the tension leaves Derek's shoulders.

Chris gives himself just a second to take it in: Derek naked below him, his hair mussed up, his eyes half-lidded, his cock curving up against the warm skin of his stomach. He takes a second, and no more, before settling on top of him to kiss him again. He doesn't want to make Derek feel leered at, but he's only human, and Derek is—he is _stunning_.

Chris feels Derek's cock pressed against his abdomen, now; Derek's thighs coming up to bracket his sides. If it's true that memory can live in the body, Chris is grateful to have so many good ones of Derek's held close against his own.

Just like before, Chris takes it slow, spending a long time just running his hand over Derek's side and kissing him. That's enough; Derek's _sensitive_ , and the first time Chris thumbs over a nipple he shivers full-body, letting out a soft and wordless noise into Chris's mouth. His hips press up against Chris's body, and Chris murmurs, "There you go."

It's different like this. Chris still isn't actually hard, but he is turned on, and until today he couldn't even really articulate that there was a difference—that it's possible to want something without a physiological response, or vice-versa. Like this, there's not as much of a sense of urgency about things. Chris can take his time, and every one of Derek's reactions, every hitch of his breath and jerk of his hips, hits Chris so much harder. It's hot, but it's more than that: Derek throws up so many walls between himself and the world around him—even between himself and Chris, even during sex. Right now, those walls are all down. It's a kind of trust Chris doesn't feel worthy of, but one he marvels at just the same.

Chris props himself on one elbow and reaches between their bodies to wrap his hand around Derek. He's blood-hot and heavy against Chris's palm, and lets out a breathy noise when touched. Chris doesn't need steady hands for this; Derek rises into his touch, pretty much immediately losing any ability to kiss, pressing his face into the side of the couch. Chris kisses his jaw instead, and is rewarded with Derek's hand grabbing at his head, pulling at his hair just a little.

"Good?" Chris asks, and Derek nods wordlessly, so Chris circles his thumb over the head of Derek's cock, keeping his touch light. A light touch is all he needs; one of Derek's heels digs into his back, Derek's teeth clenched together around the noise he tries not to make. Just like last time, Chris finds something troubling about the way Derek fights so hard to keep quiet, the way he sometimes tries not to shift into Chris's touch. "Hey," Chris murmurs, "there's nobody here but us. You're allowed make a little noise if you're into it."

"Yeah," Derek agrees breathlessly, but still bites his lip the next time Chris squeezes. God, Chris wishes he could get his mouth on him; wishes he could make it good enough so that Derek couldn't help but forget all about whatever has him holding back. Then: "Almost," Derek breathes, likely as a courtesy—but then just like last time, immediately seems to hit some sort of wall. His mouth drops open, sweat beads on his chest, his skin flushes, but he hangs there and he hangs there and he doesn't come. "Fuck," Derek grits out, frustrated, and—yes, now Chris knows a little better how this must feel, too.

"Breathe," Chris reminds him, and dips his head down to kiss at the corner of Derek's open mouth, the stubble on his jaw. "Take your time," he murmurs. "Okay? No rush. I'm not going anywhere."

He feels Derek take in a long shuddering breath, his fingers tightening in Chris's hair. Then without any further warning Derek comes hard, clenching his teeth around a low groan, his hips stuttering into Chris's hand.

Derek pants as he comes down from it, throwing an arm over his eyes. He doesn't appear to be quite as affected by it as he was the first time, but he still seems kind of raw, quiet and a little shivery from the sweat cooling on his skin. It hits Chris hard—this is, in some ways, only his second time. Chris's forehead drops to Derek's shoulder, suddenly exhausted as if he's the one who just got off instead, and he absently runs one hand through Derek's hair in a kind of clumsy soothing motion.

It was an interesting experience for him, too; part of him still feels pent-up, but there was another kind of release of tension that wasn't necessarily physical. Much to his relief, he realizes watching and touching Derek finally has him hardening just a little against the couch—but he doesn't say anything. He wants to see the experiment through to its end.

"You good?" Chris asks, after a moment.

He feels Derek nod, and tighten his grip around Chris's shoulders. Then Derek confesses, his voice that kind of soft and rough that only comes after sex, "I don't want to move."

"Mm." Chris doesn't, either. He was so wrapped up in Derek that for a few minutes all the other ugliness he's been dealing with faded into background noise. He gropes around on the floor.

"What're you—" Derek starts, then cuts himself off as Chris swipes Derek's shirt through the mess on their stomachs. Chris can't see, but he thinks he feels Derek pull a face. He'll live. They've both survived worse.

Chris catches sight of the little broken footstool with their things on it; Derek's books, and his guns. In this moment, it doesn't matter that he can't use them, that they're not within arm's reach. Derek can hear someone from thirteen floors away. He's got claws and fangs. If anything comes at them, Derek will know, and then Chris will know.

It won't last, but right now, Chris feels safe.

"You should try to sleep," Derek murmurs, tracing a pattern with his fingers on Chris's shoulder. Chris thinks it might be the triskelion. There's an unspoken, _While you can._

"Yeah," Chris agrees. He's already halfway there. His gaze goes unfocused, the guns blurring in front of him, then he lets his eyes slip slowly shut. He falls asleep listening to Derek's breathing, and the steady beat of his heart.

 

* * *

 

Chris doesn't know what Derek said to Scott after he left and didn't ask, but there must have been at least some information exchanged. A week passes without much fanfare or change, and next Sunday morning he gets another invitation, over text, to go out to lunch. This time, though, the details have been changed. _There's a park a block away from the clinic_ , Scott writes. _It has picnic tables. You can bring a sandwich._

It's rather considerate of Chris's current predicament considering Scott knows next to nothing about it: an outdoor place where he won't have to worry about the exits, a meal where he won't have to interact with many people (or dogs), and a food that doesn't require the use of a fork and knife. Scott even suggests they meet a little earlier than actual lunchtime, potentially to avoid a crowd.

Chris accepts, and a few hours later, he's pleased to find that though they won't have the place to themselves, it's not at all crowded, there are no dogs, and tables are a good distance away from the playground. It rained last night, so it's humid out, and there's dew beading in the grass that the sun hasn't quite managed to burn off on such an overcast day. The playground equipment and picnic tables are still a bit damp. Chris spots Scott alone among the tables, wearing pawprint scrubs and a baseball cap turned backwards with BEACON HILLS CYCLONES printed on it. He's scrunching his face up as he tries to dry the benches with his windbreaker.

After they sit down and get out their lunch—Scott stuffed his lunchbox full to bursting with three homemade sandwiches and several ziploc bags of chips, and digs in with fervor—Chris asks Scott about his choice of venue. "Did Derek—say anything to you?"

Scott shrugs. "He just said that it's been a rough month, and you were dealing with some stuff and weren't big on being out in public. But I could have figured that one out on my own." He sighs, pausing with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. "I mean, I get it. Kate was your sister. I don't have any real brothers or sisters, but if something happened with Derek, or with Stiles or Liam, and _I_ had to help someone stop them, or even—" He cuts himself off with a big bite of his sandwich, sneaking a look up at Chris's face as he chews. It's a moment before he swallows. "Anyway, I'm sorry. At least for your sake, I wish you guys could have found another way."

It's generous of Scott to assume there wasn't one. And he looks so _glum_ about it. Kate Argent turned Allison against him, tried to kill him more than once, and nearly had him kill all his friends—and still Chris knows a part of Scott will always wonder if there may have been a way to reach her after all, if they just kept trying. Makes him a better person than Chris is.

"You shouldn't think too poorly of Derek," Chris says. He hasn't touched his food yet. "He did it partially to spare me from having to do it myself. It was all but self-defense. The number of times she tried to kill us—"

Scott nods at the claw marks on Chris's cheek, now two weeks old. "Is that when she did that to you?" He's already polishing off his second sandwich. "Derek told me a little about it after you left, but you know how he is. Not big on details."

How much of the truth to tell? Some secrets will always be Derek's to keep, but these are Chris's scars, his still-healing ribs. "There's a strain of wolfsbane," he says, "that can rob a werewolf of all their humanity and self-control. It turns them totally—" His brain trips over _rabid_ , and he settles for— "feral. They'll fight, and kill, until their hearts give out. It's a death sentence for that werewolf, and for anyone around them. And Kate shot Derek with it."

Scott chokes on the swig of water he was taking. " _Derek_ did that to you?"

"He couldn't help it," Chris presses. "It's nothing short of a miracle we were able to get the wolfsbane burned out before we both died." He pauses. " _Kate_ did that." Maybe telling Scott this will make it a little easier to understand—not that there was absolute necessity in the choice he and Derek made, but at least part of why they made it.

Scott puts his water bottle down. "That's when you decided she really couldn't be saved?"

"It was the last nail in the coffin," Chris admits. "I'd been having doubts since she kidnapped you."

Scott blinks. "Me?"

The corner of Chris's mouth turns up a little. "You're growing up fast, Scott, but in some ways you're still a kid." No matter how mature he is for his age, seventeen is still so goddamn young, at least from Chris's side of things. "And there are some things that are—" He pauses for a moment, to blink away the image of Riley lying facedown in his own blood. "Unforgivable."

Scott chews thoughtfully. "I've been thinking about something weird Derek asked me," he says. "I was there when he was aged backwards. He was...really young, wasn't he? Before the fire, when he and Kate were...when he was in love with her. He was my age. Maybe younger."

 _Shit._ Still a kid in some ways, but Scott's not a true alpha for nothing. He's getting sharper all the time—but this is definitely Derek's secret to keep. "I wasn't there," Chris says. He can't control his heartbeat well enough to fool a werewolf, so he's working with true statements only. "I imagine you'd have to ask Derek."

Scott screws up his face. "No thanks. Have you ever tried to ask Derek about _anything_?"

Chris can laugh, because Scott's got the right of it, and Derek isn't here to get offended on his own behalf. Seeing Scott is nearly finished eating, he resigns himself to trying to force down at least half a sandwich. His hands shake visibly as he opens the wrapping.

"Do you need, like, help?" Scott asks, concerned.

"No," Chris sighs, a little embarrassed but mostly annoyed. "I'm going to have to either get over it or get used to it." And unfortunately, right now the latter's winning out. He's already making considerations for himself—less fork-and-knife dinners, less clothes with buttons and belts.

Scott watches him for a moment, fiddling with the strap of his lunchbox. He starts to say something, stops, and then, very very quietly: "It reminds me of Allison."

Chris's head jerks up; he could swear his heart stops. "What?"

Scott is staring down at the table again. "Before we sacrificed ourselves to find the nemeton," he says, "Deaton warned us that there would be a...darkness, around our hearts. We all had nightmares, hallucinations—but the darkness was a little different for each of us. Stiles stopped being able to read. I couldn't control my transformations. And Allison..."

Chris's breath catches. She'd never told him any of this.

"Allison's hands wouldn't stop shaking," Scott says, and Chris's heart breaks clean in two. "She couldn't use her bow. And her nightmares were about _Kate_ , and all the terrible things Kate was capable of. She never said as much to me, but I think..." Scott swallows, blinking fast. "I think what scared Allison more than anything was the idea that maybe, somewhere deep down, she was capable of those things too. Kate was her darkness."

A memory comes to Chris, unbidden: when they left what they thought was Kate's burial, Allison stayed behind. He remembers how he turned to look over his shoulder at once when he realized she was no longer following him. In his memory, the day is dimmer, and the colors are muted. All he can see is her: at a distance, in profile, her heels dug into fresh gravedirt, stock-still except for her dark curls blowing in the crisp autumn wind, staring down at Kate's headstone. She wasn't crying anymore, but her fists were clenched at her sides. He had to call her name three times to get her jerk her head up at him, eyes wide and startled—

Abruptly his vision refocuses on Scott sitting there in front of him, eyes bright. "Allison didn't want to hurt people the way Kate did," he says thickly. "She couldn't. I mean she _literally couldn't_. That's why her hands stopped working."

Chris presses a hand against his mouth. He's crying.

"We all got better," Scott says. "We found anchors. I already had had mine, and Allison's..." Scott sniffs. "There was this thing she used to say once in awhile, right before a fight. 'We protect those—'"

Chris closes his eyes, and says it along with him, the words as familiar now as prayer: "'—who cannot protect themselves.'" He never _knew_. He reaches across the table to clutches Scott's arm, trying to shore them both up against the grief. "Oh, sweetheart," he murmurs, but not to Scott, and they both know it. He gives himself a moment before he looks up at Scott again. "She never let on. Not a word."

"She—" Scott clears his throat. "She didn't like to make you worry." He scrubs at his eyes. "I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything."

"No." Chris wipes his eyes too. "No, I'm glad you did. Thank you." Chris doesn't know if he believes in any life after this one, but it feels almost as if Allison has reached out from beyond the grave to steady his hands with her own. It renews his resolve: if she could face her darkness with such courage and conviction, then he can do no less. If she had it in her to do that, so must he. They're family. They're _blood_. "I think that's actually just what I needed to hear, right now."

"I still miss her too," Scott says quietly, eyes still red-rimmed. "I think about her all the time."

Chris pats his arm. He has no doubt Scott loves Allison almost as much as he does, even though they had so little time together. Time ruined, because Chris and Victoria spent half of it doing their level best to break them apart. In a way, Victoria did accomplish one thing she set out to do the night she was bitten—Scott and Allison broke up, and Allison died before they really had time to decide if they ever wanted to try again.

It's a sobering thought; right now, Chris can't let it slide. "Scott, I want to apologize to you."

Scott's brow furrows. "To me? For what?"

"Victoria and I—we didn't make things easy for you two." He fiddles with his wedding ring, that old nervous tic; the shame chokes him and it's hard to get the words out. "I nearly shot you, and that was...completely inexcusable. And what Victoria did—what she tried to do—Scott, if I had known—"

"I didn't want either of you to know," Scott says, looking uncomfortable.

Yes, Allison told him that too. Chris remembers her red-rimmed eyes, the tissue she wrung in her hands. "He wasn't even going to _say_ anything, Dad," she whispered. "Of all people— _Derek_ made him tell me."

"I didn't know Derek bit her," Scott says miserably. "I would have warned you guys. Maybe you could have stopped her."

"No," Chris says hollowly. Not a soul alive knows what really happened in Allison's bedroom that night, who really drove in the knife. He kept the secret for Victoria, for her dignity, because he promised he wouldn't let Allison think she was _weak_. Allison died never knowing the truth. "No," he repeats. "There was nothing you could have done. You or Allison. Okay?"

Scott doesn't look very convinced, but he nods. After a long silence, he says, "She would be so proud of us. Allison, I mean."

"Proud?" Chris repeats doubtfully, thoughts still lingering on Victoria's body cooling in his arms.

"Well, yeah—we're finally getting along, aren't we?" Scott smiles in spite of the tears still standing in his eyes. "I always told her I'd win you over in the end."


	3. Part III

Chris stands alone in blackness. He can't see Allison, but he hears her. "They found her," she says. Her voice is close to his ear, but she's far away. "Scott found her, Dad, they found Lydia. I'm on my way."

No, no, she can't _go_ — "Allison, hold on. You have to wait—"

"I can't, Dad."

Chris spins. Where is she? She can't go, not before he does— "Allison, wait for me," he begs.

He might as well try to stop the world from turning. "There's no time. It's already night, there's no _time_ , Dad."

"Wait, Allison," Chris calls after her—

—and sits up still shouting, "Wait!"

Derek's loft. That's right—he and Derek dropped the twins off here after they rescued them from Kate. Allison's going to go after Lydia. He has to stop her—

A hand around his wrist. "Whoa, where are you going?"

Chris tries to shake free. "I have to go to Allison—let me _go_ , I have to hurry, I _have_ to get there in time—"

"Shit." Derek grabs his other wrist too. "No, look at me—"

"She's going to die!" Chris explodes, furious and terrified. All he can see is Scott's silhouette curled over her body, her hand lying lifeless on the ground beside her. "What are you doing, Derek, let me go—"

Derek looks scared. "Look at me. She's already gone." Chris thrashes in his grip, but he holds on. "Listen! You can't help her. It's already over."

Chris looks between Derek and the door, lost. "But she's—"

"Gone," Derek repeats. "She's gone."

Oh. _Oh._ Chris gasps as though struck, and begins to weep.

"Okay." Derek's voice shakes, and he pulls Chris to him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. "Okay," he says again, near Chris's temple, the other hand on the back of his head. "Okay."

Chris can't stop picturing it—the dark still shape of her, the slackness of the muscles in her face. He can't stand it, he needs so badly to hold her one more time, or even just see her smile—but he doesn't even have any photos. "Too late," he says. "I was too late."

Derek rubs his back, and for once there's no murmured reassurances, only the racing of his heart against Chris's skin. What can he possibly say? That it's all right? It isn't. That it wasn't Chris's fault? It was.

"I couldn't get there in time," Chris says, devastated. "I couldn't _protect_ her." He takes a shuddering breath. "Even when she was alive, she—she didn't tell me..." He trails off.

"Tell you what?"

Chris, in stops and starts, repeats the story Scott told him earlier today. It doesn't help to calm him. He pictures Allison suffering; waking up frightened and confused like he is now, alone with no one to comfort her, hallucinating and scared to touch her own bow.

"I didn't know that about Allison," Derek murmurs. "I was stuck in Araya's basement at the time." He cards a hand through Chris's hair. This might be the most tactile Chris has ever seen him. "She shouldn't have worried. Even at her worst, she couldn't compare to Kate."

But she did worry, and no one ever told her she shouldn't. "I thought—" Chris swallows. "I thought you two hated each other." Maybe Derek's just being kind to spare Chris's feelings, and doesn't want to speak ill of the dead.

"I didn't like her much when she was shooting arrows at me and my pack, no," Derek says, blunt. Figures; Chris ought to have known better than to assume he would try to spare anyone's feelings. "But I didn't like you much when you were putting holes in me, either."

Chris laughs thickly. "Got off to a rocky start."

"You and I," Derek allows. "But not me and Allison."

Chris finally pulls back a little to look Derek in the face. "How does that work?"

Derek pauses, as though thinking something over, then shrugs. "First thing I did after I buried the first half of Laura's body," he says, with the air of someone launching into a story, "was check around town for hunters, because I thought hunters killed her. I knew you were here before you knew I was," he adds, just this side of smug.

Chris tips his head forward against Derek's shoulder. He knows what Derek is doing—distracting him—but he can't say he doesn't appreciate it. "Yeah. One point for you."

"Two," Derek corrects. "I split my time between looking for the alpha, following Scott around to try and keep him from changing in front of anyone, and...keeping the Camaro parked at the empty house behind _yours_ to listen in on all your conversations."

Chris jerks his head up to look at him, definitely distracted now. "You're kidding. None of the neighbors bothered you?"

Derek shrugs. "Took down the _For Sale_ sign, only came around at night." Left unsaid: _Piece of cake._ Then he admits, "I only did it a few times. Once Scott blew my cover, it was too risky to keep going. And he made himself a full-time job pretty quickly. He'd been a werewolf for less than a week and still wanted to play sports." Derek shakes his head. "Go on dates."

Chris knows where this is going. "And that's how you met Allison."

"His first full moon," says Derek, "and he didn't know what he was, or didn't believe it, and he was going to a party with a girl he liked."

Chris shudders. The worst _has_ already come to pass for Allison, but fear hardly listens to logic. He knows, from terrible firsthand experience, how quickly an intimate situation with a new werewolf can go bad, and just how bad it can get. He didn't realize it then, but the day he almost shot Scott point blank in the face, he was thinking of Riley. That was why, against all reason, he had been so terrified for Allison that his first and only instinct was to resort to violence. But Allison was far safer that day than she was with Scott on his first moon.

Derek doesn't miss the change in his demeanor. "She wasn't hurt," he says, gentling his tone. He starts rubbing Chris's back again. "Scott panicked once he started to change and got himself out of there. Only problem was, he was her ride. So I took her home instead."

Chris can't say there isn't a little retroactive worry there, too: as well as he knows Derek now, as much as he trusts him, back then Derek was still his enemy. He could have—Chris does an actual double-take. "You could have done _anything_ ," he says in realization, "and you just dropped her back off at the house?"

"I did take her jacket," Derek says. "Scott was already head-over-heels, and I needed a way to get him out to the woods where he couldn't do any damage. Which is technically when I met you."

Chris remembers that. His very first glance of Derek Hale was a dark figure pulling the arrow he shot at Scott out of his arm and fleeing into the woods—after, of course, he'd made short work of the two hunters Chris had been with, the ones that would go on to break the window of the Camaro on Chris's order.

"I thought I'd have to work hard to make sure she didn't find out what I was, or what Scott was. But I could tell right away she wasn't a hunter, even though she was the right age. I—" Derek blows out a sigh. "I looked for Kate in her. But I remember thinking—you wouldn't even know they were related."

"Really."

Derek shrugs again. "I turned on the radio so I wouldn't have to talk," he says, "and there's this—this is so stupid. There's this band I really hate. So I flipped the station, just on reflex, and she said, 'Not a fan?'"

"You talked about _music_ ," Chris says in disbelief.

"I just shrugged," Derek continues, "but she said something like—all her friends loved it, and she couldn't understand why, because she hated it too. Said the vocalist sounded like someone kicked him in the balls before every song."

" _What?_ " Chris asks, scandalized, but he can't help but chuckle.

"Yeah," Derek says. "Thing is, she was right. That's _exactly_ how it sounds." Chris feels Derek's chest move with his laughter. "That last name, I was determined not to like her—but before everything went to hell, she did get me to laugh. It was the first time since Laura died."

"That's my girl," Chris says, fond. No more is he picturing her suffering—now he imagines her scrunching up her face at the music, laughing at her own joke. That's a little better. "Thank you," he adds quietly.

Derek lets go of him and falls back onto the bed. "Anytime," he says. He hesitates. "Just try not to run off on me again, okay?"

Chris sobers. He really scared Derek tonight, didn't he? "Give it my best shot," he says, "but I can't make any promises."

They sit in silence for awhile, Derek absently stroking the backs of his fingers over Chris's arm. At last he says, "You know, if she found a way to—deal with what was wrong with her, you probably can too."

"That's what I've been thinking." Chris has no idea how to deal with pain besides ignore it, and he couldn't teach to Allison what he didn't know. But maybe she found a better way. It wouldn't surprise him. "I just don't know if it's the same. She was afraid of _becoming_ a murderer." He swallows. "I already am one."

"It doesn't sound so different to me," says Derek. "Keep thinking on it. You'll find a way."

 

* * *

 

A week or so later, Chris realizes he's losing weight.

His clothes don't fit anymore. His shirts hang too loose on him, and all of his pants need belts. He might not have noticed, if it wasn't so much fucking trouble to put a belt _on_ ; he has difficulty threading them through the loops, and while he might let Derek reload his gun for him, he draws the line at asking for help with his clothing.

He's either going to have to buy new clothes, or he's going to have to start eating more.

Food is a chore, these days; sometimes the effort it takes to move the fork from his plate to his mouth seems more trouble than it's worth, and no matter what Derek orders, it all seems to taste the same.

Another thing: Chris is still losing time. Just a few minutes here and there, sometimes not even that much, and he doesn't think he actually does anything except fall asleep with his eyes open. He still has trouble falling asleep at night, and even when he does he usually can't get through the entire night without shouting himself awake; his body's just doing its best to make up for what he's losing. He goes to bed earlier and wakes up later and still seems to get less sleep.

Getting out of bed in the mornings slowly becomes a struggle; he'll wake at noon or even later. Chris is tired. He's _tired_ , and sometimes he doesn't want to get up at all. But every day, he gets up anyway, and he insists on at least attempting to check his guns. Just to make sure they're working. Just in case he needs them. After all, there's no telling when or where a new threat will present itself in this town.

Chris worries about the toll it takes on Derek, though. Derek can't be getting much more sleep than he is, and it's not right to ask him to deal with this indefinitely.

He brings it up after dinner one evening, sitting on one of the rickety wooden chairs Derek keeps out on his terrace. Spring is coming to Beacon Hills one grudging inch at a time, and at least until nightfall it's warm enough to be comfortable outside. It's nice and quiet out here, the traffic distant background noise from thirteen floors up—at least to Chris's human ears. They don't have long left, though; the sun's already slipped below the skyline, the sky turning colors. "Aren't you getting sick of this?" Chris is certainly sick of it. "Derek, I can spend a few nights in the bunker. One of us ought to be getting real sleep."

Derek leans with his elbows on the waist-high brick barrier between them and open air. He squints out into the fading pink light of dusk, breeze ruffling his hair and shirt. Chris wore a light jacket out here, but Derek burns like a wildfire and needs none. "I've told you it doesn't bother me," he says, in the annoyed tone he always uses when Chris makes him repeat himself. "What else do you want me to say?"

"It bothers _me_ ," Chris says, equally annoyed. "How can you not care I've been waking you up almost every night for weeks? Isn't this a little more than you bargained for?"

Derek turns his head to look at Chris over his shoulder. "Technically, all of this is more than I bargained for." He squints, considering Chris a moment, then steps over the empty foam trays that their dinner came in, so he can come back to the chairs, turn his around, and sit in it backwards facing Chris. "I _told_ you," he says. "This is how Laura was. This is what I'm _used_ to. I don't care."

That, Chris thinks, is one of the bleakest things Derek's ever said about himself—and there are some deeply fucked up things on that list.

"I hope I never get used to it." He's been telling himself it's temporary; that eventually the worst will pass. He'll come through the other side bruised and battered, but alive. If Allison can do it, so can he. He's not a bit less determined to see this thing through than he was before it got bad. But his hands keep trembling. The nightmares won't stop. And he can't shake the crushing weight of the guilt and self-loathing on his shoulders, no matter how he tries. It lives with him in the space between his atoms and sometimes it feels so heavy Chris just can't catch a breath. It's _not_ temporary; there's no end to it. It's just the new normal.

"But I don't know," Chris says. "Maybe I should." Because, as miserable as it is, there's a part of Chris that soundly believes he's getting what he deserves. After all he's done, maybe he _shouldn't_ just get to get functional again, and go on like it never happened. "Maybe this is penance."

Derek blows out a long sigh, breath fogging in the air. "If misery was enough to absolve anyone," he says, "we'd all be saints." His ears twitch as an ambulance goes by somewhere below them. "Action is all that matters."

"Wise words."

Derek gives him a knowing look. "Easier said than done."

It's nearly dark now, the sky blackening in the east and fading to deep blue in the west. Warm orange lights are coming on in the nearby buildings and the roads down below, and the wind is beginning to bite with nighttime chill. But Chris isn't quite ready to go inside yet. He's been thinking about Victoria a lot since his visit with Scott, and there's something he can't help but wonder. "I want to ask you something."

Derek lets his eyes slip closed, face still turned into the wind. "I'm shocked. Go ahead."

"You were the one who told Allison the truth about Victoria, weren't you?" It's not a new revelation, exactly, only put into a new light, because he knows Derek better now than he did before.

Derek glances over at him briefly. "Yeah." He clears his throat. "After she let Boyd and Cora out the bank vault. I thought we'd have to kill them, and I lost my temper. Some anchor anger turned out to be." He doesn't apologize, but there's genuine remorse in his voice. His eyes skip away again, and he turns his head to look back out at the sky. The quiet sits for a moment before he finally says, "I wanna ask you something, too."

That's new. "Shoot."

"Did Victoria tell you what she was planning to do that night?"

Jesus. Chris wonders what Derek would think of him if the answer was _yes_. Maybe it wouldn't matter. They have a heavy history, the pair of them; they've done a lot of harm to to one another, seen the absolute worst of each other, and still somehow managed to navigate their way through it. It helps a lot that they're both different people now than they were then. "I had no idea," he says. "I never wanted Scott dead. When I almost shot him—that was different. I was scared, and I didn't understand." Which doesn't mean he wouldn't have taken the shot, if not for Allison, but it wasn't the same hatred that lived in Victoria. "I think Victoria didn't tell me because she knew I would have objected."

And that _hurts_ : they didn't talk about it before she died because there was no use fighting when she had so little time left, but his wife of twenty years _lied_ to him. She deliberately went behind his back to break the code of ethics he tried to live his entire life by. It makes him angry and then makes him feel guilty for being angry, because she's dead now. She's dead.

He and Derek have already cleared the air over Victoria; neither of them labor under the delusion that what happened was all Derek's fault, nor that he bears absolutely none of the responsibility. But the person Allison really should have been angry with—

Chris stands up abruptly, tucking his freezing fingers under his arms, and paces to the brick barrier, throat working. He should go inside. They should go inside.

He hears Derek stand behind him. "What is it?"

Maybe he owes Derek this one. Derek carries the burden of his part in Victoria's death alone, and that's not fair. Not when Chris was the one shoving the knife between her ribs.

"I've never told anyone this," Chris starts. Derek comes to stand beside him, close enough Chris can feel the heat of him, but not touching. "But when Victoria was turned, Gerard gave me ultimatum. If she couldn't—" He takes a deep breath to fight down the sudden nausea, the residual panic. He speaks carefully, one word at a time. "If she couldn't do it, he would."

It's a long time before Chris masters himself. "I don't remember," he says, "how much I knew back then. About—" He can't get the name out. "You know. It was so mixed up for so long. But I know Gerard knew. And I know—" He swallows. "That _I_ thought it was my second chance. To do things right. I thought it would be better, if I didn't fight it. If I was kind about it."

Derek, thank God, is silent. He lays a careful hand on Chris's shoulder, warm even through Chris's jacket.

"Victoria wanted to do it in Allison's bedroom, so she could be with her," Chris says. "But she couldn't do it herself, so she asked me to help her. So I kissed her cheek, and held her, like he asked me to do for him. Her hands on the knife, so the police would find her fingerprints. My hands over hers. Steady as a goddamned rock." He shakes his head. "She asked me not to tell. She didn't want anyone to think she was weak, especially Allison. And I told her—" He shudders, and tells himself it's the cold. "I told her I knew how hard it was, but she was doing it for us." He drags a hand down over his face. "That's—that's sick. That's _fucked_. What kind of person does something like that? _Says_ something like that?"

Derek squeezes Chris's shoulder. Chris can't look at him. "Someone without a lot of options."

That's kind of him. Looking back, Chris can see so many roads he could have taken, that didn't end with his daughter losing her mother. There are countless ways he failed Allison as a parent, but this is by far the worst. "Allison shouldn't have been angry with you and your pack, she should have been angry with _me_. But I couldn't tell her. If she had been angry with me, she would have had no parents left." Just another example of his cowardice. He lets out a soft sound of disgust. "I don't know how you stand me. I can't stand myself."

Chris's ribs are starting to ache; he's been standing up for too long. Still he doesn't want to move; he's afraid to meet Derek's eyes, of what he may see there. Right after he'd remembered the truth about Riley, there on the riverbank where he and Derek nearly killed each other, he asked, _What are you_ doing _here?_ He still can't say he understands.

"I'm not in a position to judge," Derek says finally. "Killing Paige isn't any different."

"Because it reactivated the nemeton?" Chris doesn't know many of those details; aside from what comes from Derek himself, Derek's history is something Chris got in disjointed bits and pieces, second and third and fourth-hand. He heard this particular bit from Allison who got it from Scott who got it from Stiles who got it from Peter. It's horribly unfair, that a history so full of personal tragedies and violations gets told over and over to strangers and enemies without Derek's consent.

Derek gives Chris a searching look. "You really don't know?" Chris shakes his head, and to his surprise he feels Derek take his hand away, lean into Chris instead. "She was my girlfriend," Derek says. "I met her about six months before Kate."

 _Jesus._ Somehow it didn't connect, that Derek was practically still a kid when he killed her. But the dates add up—Chris just keeps forgetting how young Derek really is.

"I was terrified of her finding out what I was, and leaving me," Derek says. "Peter told m—" He halts midword, pressing his lips together.

"What?"

Derek shakes his head. "Doesn't matter," he says. "I won't say Peter had nothing to do with it, but the final choice was mine. I arranged for her to be bitten by a friend of my mother's. You remember Ennis?"

Holy _shit_. "Yeah."

"He bit her, but her body rejected the bite," Derek says. The more he talks, the flatter his tone becomes. "I carried her to the nemeton to keep her hidden and safe, but it's a death sentence. There was nothing I could do to help her. Nothing except what she asked me to do, when the pain was more than even I could take away from her." He looks down at his hands, and Chris remembers: _I don't do it for just anyone_. "I didn't have a weapon. I snapped her neck." When he looks back up at Chris, his eyes flash that killer's blue in the dark, and it's just unexpected enough that Chris's pulse spikes. Derek says again, "I'm not in a position to judge. You get it now?"

Chris does. They're both killers, however reluctant they might have been, and they both started early. Anything Chris could say to Derek now to justify what he did— _you were young, you had no choice, you didn't mean for that to happen_ —they're all things he could say to himself. If he excuses Derek, he excuses himself, and if he condemns himself, he also condemns Derek.

"There's something else," Derek says. "I spent a lot of time lying to Paige. So the next time—when I thought I was in love—"

Chris jerks his head to look at Derek, eyes wide.

"I wanted to be honest. I thought it was _my_ second chance." Derek is dry-eyed; expressionless, toneless. "So I told her everything. I thought that would be better."

Again and again, Chris finds all the paths he walks down already bear Derek's footprints. This one is no different. "Derek, I'm so sorry."

Derek shakes his head. He's still pressing into Chris, shoulder-to-shoulder. Maybe he's finally getting cold too. Or maybe, impossibly—he's actually seeking comfort. "I tried to fix it," he says, "and I just fucked it up. I didn't get it right that time, or the one after that. But I got there eventually." In the dark, Derek's expression is hard to read. Does he mean Braeden? He can't mean _Chris_. "You got it right eventually too."

The Calaveras and the green wolfsbane. It's not nothing. But, he points out, "Twenty-three years too late."

Derek turns to Chris, then, and reaches out to touch his face. In a moment, the ache that's been building in Chris's ribs drains away into the blackened veins on Derek's arm. "You stood between me and a _firing squad_. If you hadn't, I'd be dead. No question."

"Derek—"

Derek brushes his thumb over the clawmarks on Chris's cheek. They've finally healed but the scars just won't fade. "That has to be enough," he says, serious and worried. "Take it from someone who knows—if you can't make it work, if you can't find some kind of peace with it, it _will_ kill you."

Chris thinks of the guns he can't use, tucked safely away in his jacket and waistband. There are easier ways to make that happen, if he decided it was what he wanted. Hand tremors or not, at point blank range even he couldn't miss. And he'd be lying if he said the thought didn't tempt him more now than it did before he remembered the truth about Riley—but he's not ready to throw in the towel just yet. Living a long life, and living it to protect: that was the last promise he ever made to Allison.

And, despite everything else—Derek is still here.

"I'll try," he murmurs, tipping his face forward so his forehead meets Derek's, "I'm trying," and he hopes Derek hears the rest: _I don't want to lose you either._

Eventually, the temperature plummets, and even Derek begins to get chilly, so they go inside. Despite the early hour, the endorphins from werewolf painkillers and the relative warmth of the loft combined have Chris suddenly exhausted, blinking heavily and failing to fight down a yawn.

"Lie down before you fall down," says Derek, so Chris does, pulling off the bare minimum of clothing (guns, jacket, belt, and boots) before crawling into bed. When he feels Derek climb in behind him, he turns halfway onto his back to lean up kiss him—and half-misses his lips, his cheek grazing Derek's instead.

Derek might be laughing at him. "Knock it off," he says, propped up on one elbow so he can look down at Chris. "Go to sleep."

That wakes Chris up a little. Before he can consider that keeping his mouth shut about it might be a better idea, he says, "Are you sure? We didn't..." They've never slept in this bed together without having sex in it first. They're past the point of pretending they need that as an excuse to touch each other in more intimate ways, but they built this thing they have with sex as the foundation, and Chris worries that without the sex, it can't stand. He says, again, "I can go home."

"No," Derek says. "Stay." Not _You can stay_ , or _Stay if you want_. He's outright asking for Chris's company. "You shouldn't be by yourself right now." He takes one deep breath, then another, and finally manages, "I don't—I don't want to be by myself right now either."

Chris thinks of Derek telling him about Paige; expressionless, but leaning into Chris despite how particular he is about touch. He reaches up to brush Derek's hair away from his face, and nods. He lets himself drop back down onto the bed, still on his side, exhaustion already weighing him down.

After a moment, he feels Derek move close to him; his hand, warm, skims on Chris's still-clothed shoulder and then rests there. His lips and nose press into the nape of Chris's neck. "Okay?" he asks.

Having a werewolf at their back would probably make any other hunter nervous, but Chris? These days, nothing makes him feel safer.

"Okay," he agrees, and sleeps.

 

* * *

 

Here's the thing: Chris really doesn't want to die.

Oh, it'd be _nice_ , sure—but he thinks of it in the wistful way people think about how it'd be _nice_ to walk out of their day job and take up antiquing full-time, or how it'd be _nice_ if a meteor struck their college campus and classes got canceled forever. No one actually wants those things to happen, deep down; they want to feed their families and get their degrees. Those idle pipe dreams are just vaguely pleasant what-if thoughts to get them through the day when the going gets tough.

Chris has thought it would be nice to die ever since he drove that dagger through Victoria's ribs. A pleasant thought, but ultimately not an option. At first it was because of Allison; he had to be good enough for two parents, with Victoria gone, and he couldn't leave her alone. Then Allison died, and the only thing stopping him from blowing his brains out as soon as the funeral was over was the possibility that Kate might be alive. Now that she's gone too, all he's got is Derek, a few newly unearthed memories he didn't want and doesn't know how to live with, and one new memory he wouldn't be able to live without.

_We're going to have a new code: Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger eux-mêmes._

Deep, deep down, Chris doesn't want to die. It'd be nice, but he's not ready yet. He needs to keep the promise he made to his daughter.

He tries to remember that, when he wakes up late the next afternoon, having slept like the dead for sixteen nightmare-free hours after the past three truly terrible nights had him getting almost no sleep at all. He's stiff and aching all over, actually drooling a little on the pillow, and the light coming in from Derek's high windows makes his head pound; a classic sleep hangover. The loft is empty, but Derek left a note in tidy block print on his side of the bed, long gone cold:

_Didn't want to wake you. Went for a run. Back by dark.  
Derek_

It's the same utilitarian, minimum-word style Derek uses in texts. In addition, he's the only occupant of the entire building, so there's absolutely no doubt as to who the note could be from—but the signature is a nice touch regardless. Chris has been thinking about Victoria a lot since his talk with Scott, and it seems everything reminds him of her lately; this note takes him back to leaving similar messages back and forth with her, before text messaging even existed.

Which is why it's such a shock when, after he gets dressed and checks his phone, he gets the reminder that today is March 28th—his and Victoria's would-be twenty-first wedding anniversary. He can't believe he forgot it was coming.

Victoria was bitten near the end of their last wedding anniversary, and died the day after that. There was no time for any real celebration, not with the kanima running around and Gerard living in their house, but Chris managed to sneak out of bed early that morning and cook her breakfast in bed without waking anyone, the same way he did every year. He told her, with no small amount of apology in his tone, "Next year, I'll get flowers too. Gifts, a second honeymoon, whatever you want."

Victoria said, with a smile that was soft only for him, "Roses will do."

"Then roses it'll be," promised Chris with a smile of his own, then kissed her cheek and left her to eat while he took care of her usual morning duties for her.

Well, it's March 28th again, and though Victoria's gone, Chris Argent is a man of his word. No good not letting Derek know where he went, though—he could send a text, sure, but for sentimentality's sake, he decides to use the back of the note itself, just like he and Vicky used to do. He locates a pen, turns it over—

His hand stills.

He and Derek might be close, but they are _not_ married, not by a long shot. Hell, they're just barely getting past _friends-with-benefits_ , and they weren't even friends for a sizeable chunk of that time, just two lonely former enemies sharing a foxhole for a little while. But it's a scarily easy way of thinking to fall into, isn't it? No wonder Derek's been trying to pump the brakes.

Chris scrubs a hand over his face. God, what is he doing? It's his anniversary, and here he is waking up in someone else's bed, getting ready to sign his name on the back of someone else's note. He hesitates, lip between his teeth, pen tapping restlessly against the paper. Marriage isn't a requirement to leave someone a fucking message, he decides finally, trying to ignore his guilt. Death did them part. He's not being unfaithful.

Chris twists his wedding ring once around his finger. Then he jots in his new unsteady handwriting:

_Doing some errands. See you at dinner.  
Chris_

And he goes straight to the florist's to get his wife some roses.

Chris has been back in Beacon Hills for nearly a month, now, which is almost as much time as he spent away from it looking for Kate. Since then, he hasn't gotten any less easy to startle, especially in public places, so buying flowers isn't the simple task he imagined it would be last year. But a promise is a promise.

"A dozen," he tells the florist, then hesitates when he thinks about where he's going. What he'll be doing there. His mouth goes dry at the thought, but he pushes forward and makes himself say: "Actually, better make it thirteen."

"Thirteen?" the florist asks, with skepticism. "That's not a very lucky number."

"That's all right," Chris says as he pays, "these days, I'm not usually a very lucky man."

He used to be. With a wife and daughter anyone would envy, he used to feel blessed beyond measure, despite his and his family's profession, despite his difficult upbringing under Gerard's thumb. He'd like to say that old life was over the moment he came back to Beacon Hills, that it's this cursed fucking town that took it all from him, but the truth is it ended with Victoria's last breath. That was when he started to doubt his family's legacy, when Allison was forced to stop being a child and grow up too fast and too soon. Anyway, how can a family possibly ever be the same shape again, when there's one less person in it?

No, Chris thinks, on his way to Beacon Hills Cemetery, Chris ended that happy life with his own two hands.

He's back on the motorcycle today, his ribs having healed enough he can ride for several hours at a time without much real pain, and he has the roses double-bagged to protect them from the wind. He gets them out and throws the bags away once he arrives, takes a deep breath, and braces himself.

He hasn't been to this cemetery since Allison's funeral.

He goes to visit his little girl first, and he's shocked to find there are already flowers on the grave, because she's been gone four months, and he couldn't imagine anyone still thinks of her as much as he does. But there they are: slightly wilted wildflowers, tied with a blue ribbon and weighted down by pebbles, with a folded piece of paper tucked between the stems. Curious, throat already tight, Chris unfolds it with a shaking hand.

It's a computer-printed photo of Scott and Allison.

Chris brings a hand to mouth. He hasn't seen Allison's face since her funeral, either, but at last, here she is. She looks so young and so _happy_ —she and Scott, they're on a bridge in the preserve, Scott still has long hair, and Allison's wearing the necklace Kate gave her for her last birthday. In the photo, the two of them are smiling, eyes only for each other. There's no writing on the picture, but in the corner in permanent marker are two circles—Scott's pack symbol, the tattoo he has on his left arm. The one meaning permanence.

So Chris isn't the only one still affected by their lunchtime conversation. He refolds the photo, and tucks it into his wallet instead of putting it back. He doesn't think Scott would mind; things left on a headstone are rarely things people expect to see again. Carefully, Chris pulls out four roses and lays them alongside Scott's flowers.

He tried so hard to keep her safe. Lost his ground one inch at a time: first when he gave in to Victoria and Gerard's wishes and allowed her to begin her hunter's training. Then the day they argued in his office, when she said "Someone needs to help them," and he'd told her, "Not us," causing her to turn her back on him and do it alone. That brilliantly sunny afternoon he lost for so long, when she told him, "I have a different plan. We're going to have a new code." And finally, the night she called him to tell him they'd found the missing Lydia, and she was going ahead without him, when he begged and begged her to wait for him. That was the last they ever spoke to one another.

In his mind's eye all he can see is her turning away from him again and again, hurtling headlong into dangers no one could protect her from. Because she was good, and brave, and it was the right thing to do, and for all the things he taught her, he never could impress upon her just how important it was that she not _die_.

He fought every step of the way to save her, saw the end coming in slow motion from the moment he'd woken up outside the Hale house with his sister dead and Peter Hale on fire to watch her kiss Scott McCall, totally unafraid of his claws and fangs and glowing eyes. Fear is what keeps people alive—maybe that's why he's lived so long. But she was outgrowing him. She was already the person he's been fighting his entire life to try and become. There was no one and nothing that could keep her away from what she believed was right.

No one, nothing. Not even him.

Chris lays a hand on the gravestone, struggling to master himself. Finally, he leans down and presses his lips against the top, as though he's tucking her into bed like he did when she was young. _Good night, sleep tight; see you again at morning's light!_

Chris visits Kate's grave next. He almost feels guilty for doing it; his sister was not a good person and Chris knew that the first time he mourned her, knows it now with even more certainty. But it hasn't gotten any easier to sort out since then. To mourn the loss of someone who did so many terrible, unforgivable things can't be right, but she was still his _sister_ , and neither can it be right to let her pass from this world without a soul to care that she's gone, especially when Chris _gave up_ on her, and helped see to her death.

This grave is empty, he knows that now—her ashes are somewhere in the wind around the cliffs by the coast. In a way, it's comforting. His sister always hated this town, and Chris was never comfortable with her being buried here—it was Gerard who insisted. Nonetheless, this is the only grave she'll ever get. Chris pulls four roses out of his bundle for Katie; maybe she wasn't worth saving, but despite everything, she was still his sister, and he helped end her life. This is the least he can do.

Victoria's grave is last. Four of the roses are hers, as promised; perhaps a still-living Victoria would have preferred the entire bouquet, but she isn't the only person Chris visited today, and he still fights so hard against this terrible, inexplicable anger with her. Derek spoke of making his peace, and with Kate and her sins Chris is near to managing, but what Victoria did still eats at him, and he can't put his finger on the difference.

_If you can't make it work, if you can't find some kind of peace with it—_

Chris is not ready to die. He takes a deep breath and decides to sit with it awhile.

He's never really believed much in speaking to the dead. If there is some sort of afterlife, some kind of Heaven—and in his professional opinion, it's not likely—it must be far away from here. What's the point in talking to someone who can't hear you? He doesn't have anything to say to Victoria; only questions, the same questions he once wanted to ask Kate: _why, why, why? How could you do something like that?_

_How could you leave us?_

He doesn't believe in speaking to the dead, but he has to physically swallow back that last question, and that's how he knows. He isn't only angry that she tried to kill Scott. Killing's the family business; at some point or another they've all gone too far, and it's not excusable, but somewhere along the way it did stop being shocking. No, he's angry at her for being willing to die. For not fighting to stay with her family, for leaving he and Allison alone to try and fill the gaping hole in their lives she left behind: with violence and vengeance, with drinking and nightmares.

He swore to Victoria he'd tell Allison that dying was a hard sacrifice she made for her family, but right now? Dying looks a lot like the easy way out after all. She died in Allison's bedroom so she could be with her, but if that was really what she wanted, she should have _stayed_. Chris once balked at the very idea of his wife in chains every month, but no full moon could be as unbearable as holding Allison at her funeral. Oh, he'd love to blame himself, Gerard, or even Derek—but one person he's been trying not to blame is actually the one bearing the brunt of the responsibility. Not because, as he's been thinking, she did something terrible and got bitten in justifiable self-defense—but because, after the bite, she gave up. And worse, she asked Chris to help her do it. He has to live with that—he has to _live_ with that, and she _doesn't_.

Chris stands. He can't stand to be next to her another second, not right now. It's going to take time.

Here are the terrible, ugly truths, about the headstones laying below him: First, that it wasn't possible to save Allison. Secondly, that it _was_ possible Chris could have found a way around allowing Kate to be killed, and he chose not to try. And finally, that the person _most_ responsible for Victoria's death is Victoria.

He doesn't know if he could call it peace, exactly. It sure as hell isn't forgiveness, or absolution. But the truth is objective and immutable, and the truth is that Chris can't possibly blame himself and only himself for all three of these gravestones, even if he'd really like to, because he's only human and some things are just plain out of his control. The guilt, nigh unbearable before now, is finally starting to recede. It's a start.

But Chris still has one rose left; there's one more loved one he wanted to see today.

Riley has no headstone in this cemetery. He had no family. He was an only child, and back in France, he'd been forced to flee his home when one of his family turned and started killing the rest. When he finally dared return, it was to their corpses cooling on the floor, and Gerard holding the smoking gun that had just put an end to the threat. Riley was almost old enough to be trained, and he begged Gerard and the men with him to teach him, so he could stop it from happening to anyone else. There was no one left to protest on his behalf, when they took him back to America.

No one to call and inform, after—

Chris stares blankly at the graveyard for a few minutes. He's tried and tried, but he cannot, for the life of him, remember what became of Riley's body. Surely Gerard would have wanted the evidence to be gotten rid of, and Chris can name half a dozen ways to do the job without breaking a sweat, but his memory cuts off abruptly at the point Derek pulled him out of his flashback, when he's still staring, horrified, down past the barrel of his pistol at Riley's corpse.

He has to know. He has to. And not just because he needs somewhere to leave this rose. He can't stand the thought that it all ended with Riley's corpse in the bottom of a landfill. It shouldn't matter, but it does, because a good man would have buried him. The last thing Riley ever said to him was _Hang onto that hope for me._ Chris hasn't given up. He just wants to know that there was one thing about it that wasn't totally inhumane. He isn't a good man, but he wants to believe he can be, or was once. He just needs some place to start. Even if Riley's body is long gone, there has to be some way to honor his memory. To apologize.

He doesn't know what became of Riley's body, but he knows how to find out. It's a nice, sunny day, very nearly warm, and his ribs aren't giving him much trouble today. There's a couple of hours yet before Derek will look for him, and his destination isn't too far away. He can walk it. It'll give him time to gather his courage—or back out.

Chris tucks the rose into the buttonholes of his jacket, and leaves the cemetery—heading straight to the corner of Lakefield Drive and Oak Hill Lane.

 

* * *

 

There's a dilapidated _For Sale_ sign in the front yard. The house is totally empty.

Chris thought it might be. After all, most of them are, including almost every house within eyesight of this one. It's an ongoing problem in Beacon Hills, the slow real estate market. Most people don't want to live in this town once they start to suspect what walks its streets after dark, and it's only gotten worse since the nemeton was reactivated. It's why they have so many abandoned buildings.

Someone must have lived here in the twenty-three years since Chris and his family left, though. The roof's been redone, and the walls have been painted different color. Looking at it from where his feet are rooted to the sidewalk, Chris hardly recognizes it as the same place. But the red light and long shadows of sunset makes it look foreboding all time same. It's dark inside and shut up tight like a tomb.

Maybe it won't work, if he goes in. Maybe it will all look too different.

Or maybe it won't.

It isn't just his hands that shake now. Chris swallows dryly, and forces himself to move. One foot in front of the other; one step at a time.

Chris could never pick a lock, not like this. He makes his way around to the side of the house and smashes a window in with his elbow. From there it's no trouble to reach through the broken glass, unlock the window, and open it. There's no security system. They can't _give_ these houses away, why waste effort and money guarding them?

Before Chris goes inside, he turns off his phone. No interruptions this time. He's seeing it through to the end.

And now he's on his own.

Chris shimmies through the window, which is less trouble than it used to be now that he's losing weight, and lands feet-first on broken glass in the darkened kitchen, heart hammering behind his ribs. He expects to be hit with memories right away, but the house looks totally different. The walls have been repainted, the floors redone. There's no furniture, save for things like chairs stacked in corners and empty picture frames leaned against walls. The layer of dust on the floor has to be almost half an inch thick; Chris leaves footprints behind him. It's completely unfamiliar to him, and somehow that's more unnerving. His family lived here for almost two years, which is a damn long time considering how often most hunters move around. He should _remember_ this place—but it feels totally alien.

Chris ventures out of the kitchen on tenterhooks, stepping as slow and careful as he does in the field, when he's so silent that sometimes even werewolves cannot hear him. Instinct has him aching to reach for his gun, but, he reminds himself, the danger here is years gone. He reaches for his keys instead, and the little light he keeps on his keychain. It's old and weak and flickers often, and of course it shakes in his hand, but the red sunset light coming in through the windows grows dimmer by the second, and it's better than nothing.

Outside the kitchen is the living room and then the front hall. This is a little more familiar—the hearth is the same, and the front door is still the one made of ash wood—but it doesn't spark the memory Chris wants it to. He keeps going: through the lounge, the office, one room after the next. It's a big house, and there are plenty of them to see. But nothing catches his attention until he reaches the high-ceilinged room that used to be library.

Chris and Riley spent so many hours here, both before and after he was turned, Chris could never forget it. It takes up both floors of the house, and still the shelves used to stretch nearly up to the ceiling. There used to be a long table by one of those big wide windows, that let in enough daylight for the pair of them to read by—

Riley looks at Chris from his place by the window. "A cure?"

"Yeah, yeah," Chris says excitedly, "listen to this, it says, uh—" He squints. The book's in French, and he's been reading it so long his brain isn't quite translating right anymore. "Il faut...too—twer—tuer? Celui kw—qui—"

Riley laughs, but he gets up from his own stack of books and wanders over. "Oh, my ears are bleeding. Let me see it, you butcher." He leans in close—

Chris blinks, and the memory is gone. He lifts his hand into the empty air, disbelieving. It was so _real_ —down to the smell of books and rain drumming against the glass. It's hard to believe he can't reach out and touch Riley; he was standing right there only a moment ago.

He sees the house with new eyes now. He remembers where every piece of furniture was, what colors the walls used to be. He goes through room after room, and each holds a memory: Riley sitting on the counter in the kitchen, Riley stealing kisses in the hollow below the stairs, Riley picking the lock of the armory so they could sneak in and steal some chains—

Movement out of the corner of his eye. Chris turns halfway to find the darkened silhouette of a gaunt and silent figure not four feet to his left, staring at him with wide open eyes.

Chris's pulse skyrockets, and he leaps back—so does the stranger. Then he understands: there's still a cracked mirror hanging above the bathroom sink, and he caught sight of it through the open door. That ghostlike old man is his own reflection. For a moment, Chris forgot he wasn't nineteen anymore.

Chris presses a trembling fist to his mouth, swallowing fast to fight his nausea. Tiny shivers run up and down his frame. He's okay. He's okay.

He forces his eyes away from the mirror, and they land on the bathroom window instead. The sun has slipped below the horizon now, and he can just make out the outline of the garage, a separate building from the house, against the rapidly-darkening sky.

Part of him was hoping he wouldn't have to go that far.

Chris reaches up to touch the rose still tucked into a jacket. Unlucky thirteen; this one has a thorn the florist missed, and something about its sharpness against his fingertips pulls him out of his head a little, even though it doesn't break the skin. He came here for a reason; he's not backing out now.

Chris finds the back door and goes outside, where streetlights are finally beginning to flicker on. The sun took the warmth of the afternoon with it, and the night is quickly becoming a blustery one; the wind dries his eyes and makes them sting, and the side door to the garage rattles with every gust. Chris approaches warily, terrified beyond logic that something is in there waiting for him. He freezes once his hand touches the knob, feeling the door shudder like something alive. He can make out dark indistinct shapes through the dirty window. This is it—this is it.

Without warning Chris's pulse slams into overdrive, the sharp upturn of terror so powerful it chokes him. He sucks in a ragged breath that doesn't make it to his lungs. He knows he's hyperventilating but he doesn't know how to stop, he just breathes in and breathes in and breathes in until his chest hurts. He's scared and he doesn't want to go in by himself. Why did he _come_ here? What was the point, what good will it do anyone?

The body can't sustain this level of stress for long. Fight or flight kicks in and after a brief struggle of _I can't I can't I can't_ against _I won't leave I won't leave I won't_ fight wins and he throws the door open and flings himself inside with a cry.

The garage is still and dark, and slightly warmer than the outside. Chris shivers anyway, panting as he comes down from the panic attack. It's quieter now that the door has stopped rattling, though it still opens and closes in the wind, gently tapping the doorframe, making it lighter and then darker and then lighter again. The wind whistles through every crack in the doors and windows. Chris drags his sleeve over his face to dry his eyes, knees weak. He leans back against the wall behind him for support, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to catch his breath.

The door taps against the doorframe. Darkness. The wind pushes it open again. Light, from the moon, from the streetlights outside. The wind dies and it swings closed—

Riley kicks the door shut behind them, laughing into Chris's mouth. "God, I missed this—"

Chris forces his eyes open. Too early. That isn't what he needs.

Riley brushes Chris's hair away from his face. "You hang onto that hope for me, eh? Could come in handy later."

" _Stop_ ," Chris says aloud, forcing himself away from the wall. He has that already, that isn't what he _needs_. He spins, uncertain. It's hard to tell how much the garage has changed in the dark, especially with the stacked chairs and other furniture shoved into the corners. Then he squints at the wall he was just leaning against. There—four deep gouges in the concrete, filled in later but with the outlines still visible. Chris runs his own fingers over one of the last places Riley's ever were. He ducked and rolled to get away from this blow—

"Riley, listen to me—"

There's growling from closeby, and glowing red eyes flash in the dark—

Chris starts as though he's really seen them, as though he really heard the growling, but of course the garage is empty. "You're okay," he whispers, tucking his hands under his arms, "you're okay, you're okay..."

Chris doesn't want to do the whole thing again. He can't; it would actually kill him. But if he's not careful, he's going to get lost in it. He has to focus on the end.

The weapons table was between where the cars normally parked. Gerard had to half-drag him through Riley's blood and guts to get him to it, so Riley would have fallen halfway between them. And Chris would have been standing on the near side of it, close to the automatic door.

Carefully, Chris steps into position, and then turns to face the spot where Riley died. But nothing looks out of place on that section of floor, and it doesn't switch over into memory. "Fuck," Chris says, and with shaking hands fumbles and gets out the gun in his jacket. He looks upward, blinking fast, and keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling as he aims it down at that place on the floor. He takes a deep breath, gripping the gun like a lifeline, and a fresh wave of tears streaks hot down his face. He takes one last moment to try and gather his courage.

Then he looks down the barrel of his gun.

A ringing silence follows the shot, and that's it: Riley's gone. Chris can't even begin to process the permanence of it. Never again will he hear Riley's voice, or feel his touch. His last memory of Riley will forever be how his head dropped forward in an instant, like a puppet with cut strings, when Chris shot him. It's so scary, how people die in the blink of an eye, in a heartbeat, in the space between one breath and the next. There and then gone. Ten minutes ago Chris was kissing him. Now he's dead.

It happened so fast. It just happened so fast.

Chris hears, as though he is far away and underwater, Gerard shouting at the rest of the family to get out of the garage. He turns to Chris and says something else, but Chris only sees him out of the corner of his eye; his vision is locked on the body, the way Riley's hair falls over his eyes, how he could almost just be banged up and passed out after a bad mission, if not for the blood and brain matter still coming out of the back of his skull, dripping down the side of his head.

Gerard shakes him by the shoulders. "Do you hear me? I want this place _spotless_ before you come inside."

"What?" Chris finally turns to look at Gerard, lost. Clean it? "But what—" He looks back at the body, helpless. "What am I supposed to do with him?"

Gerard releases Chris's shoulder, disgusted. "Do I really have to talk _you_ through the basic task of disposing of a _werewolf_?"

Chris recognizes that tone and straightens his spine; tries to stop his shaking. "No sir."

"Remember: be thorough. I don't want this brought back up ever again, do you understand?"

Chris thinks of how werewolves are supposed to be cut in half to make sure they're really dead. He thinks of every way he knows to get rid of a body. He cannot imagine doing any of this to Riley. "Yes sir."

"Good. Get it done. If you want breakfast, you'll get it clean before dawn." Gerard tracks bloody footprints through the garage as he walks to the door, worsening the mess. He pauses there with his hand on the knob. "Don't make me regret being so lenient with you, Christopher."

He opens the door, and for a moment Chris is seized with terror; wants to beg his dad to come back so he doesn't have to be alone with his lover's corpse.

But that's not how this works.

The door slams shut behind Gerard, and now it's Chris who drops; the gun falls from his hand and his legs give out. He's on his knees in the mess around Riley, so close he could reach out and touch him. From this angle, he can just make out—oh, God. Riley died with his eyes still open, and his pleading gaze is still trained on Chris.

Chris swallows down the urge to puke. It'll just be more mess to clean before this can be over.

Instead, he stretches out a trembling hand. Slowly, slowly, he brushes Riley's bloody hair away from his face one last time, and with his fingertips he closes Riley's eyes.

There are a lot of ways to get rid of a body. They can be burned or cut up, or weighed down and tossed into water, or even left in the woods for animals to scavenge. But that's not the way to say goodbye to a loved one.

Gerard just said to get rid of the evidence, he didn't say _how_ , and Chris already knows he isn't going to go behind him and check, just punish him if the police come knocking. This has all been left up to Chris's discretion, and he's gotten really good lately at keeping secrets, especially from Gerard. Gerard wouldn't approve of what Chris wants to do, so Chris just won't tell him—in fact, he won't tell anyone. After all...

What a person doesn't know can't hurt them.

 

* * *

 

The door of the garage slams open again in the wind. Chris is on the floor in the middle of the garage, knees gone stiff, with his gun lying a foot or so to his right and his face still wet. When he looks down the empty space surprises him; he expected to see Riley, expected to feel Riley's warm blood soaking through the knees of his jeans. But it's all gone.

Well, not all of it. Chris knows now. He knows where Riley is. And he's not losing that again.

Chris stumbles to his feet, making for the door and leaving the gun behind. He shoves it open—and is immediately blinded by a brilliant burst of sunlight. He shields his eyes with his arm, wincing. He didn't realize it was so bright today. And shit, where are his keys? He can't remember where he parked. But that's all right—he can walk it. He knows the way now. It won't take long, it's—

"—not far," Chris says over his shoulder. "We're finished with the trail; from here we just follow the creek." Chris's family has moved around all his life, but he was born in Beacon Hills, he's lived here more times than he's lived anywhere else, and he knows these woods.

"I couldn't even see the trail," Riley complains from behind him. "The trees were too thick. I'm never going to be—oh, how do you say it—when you're being smart in the forest."

"Woods-wise," Chris supplies. "You'll get the hang of it eventually, especially with your super-senses—and here we are."

South of the lookout point but north of the lake, the trees break up into a little clearing, and there's a minor but abrupt drop in the creek—maybe seven or eight feet. Several of the rocks near the top of the cliff jut out to offer shade and shelter next to the small waterfall that drop creates, and beneath them the wild underbrush hides the entrance to a tunnel that seems to have been caved in for decades, with the remains of a barred gate wedged between two massive pieces of rubble. The preserve is a popular spot for hikers, fishers, and hunters—of both the regular kind of animal and the supernatural. Chris found this place during one of his survival tests, and between the deer in the forests and the trout in the river, he'd managed to wait out his entire two weeks with no supplies here in relative comfort. He spent a lot of that time curiously poking around the door, trying to see if he could dislodge the gate or move any of the rubble, but whoever built and used to use this tunnel—probably that weird reclusive family living on the south side of the lake, Hall, Hayes, something like that—doesn't seem to use it anymore. It's stuck for good.

And when Riley was turned, and needed somewhere far from home to practice controlling his transformations, Chris knew just where to take him.

"We're finally alone!" Riley bats his eyelashes. "Kiss me, lover."

Chris folds his arms, stern. "Chains first."

Riley sighs, stripping off his gloves and jacket. "And they say romance is dead."

Riley's getting much better at controlling the shift. Soon, he won't need the chains at all. There's a willowy pine tree on top of the cliff next to the waterfall, and last time they were here, Riley flicked his claws out and carved his initials into it, just to prove a point. Chris never did agree to kissing Riley when he wasn't chained up, but eventually, after some goading, he reluctantly got his pocketknife out and carved his initials too—

—and it's still there, all these years later. Chris reaches out to touch the letters, bark rough beneath his fingertips.

 _RR + CA_  
_11/88_

Not far from the tree, still in the shadows of its branches and almost close enough to touch, is a large smooth rock just low enough to sit on. Halfway between the tree and the rock, underneath deliberately unmarked ground—

That's where Riley is.

Chris buried him. He _buried_ him, he remembers it now—squeezing Riley's blood out of a mop for hours, coming out here by car and then foot, carrying a shovel and Riley's body, cold and wrapped in a blood-stained sheet, in his arms in the dim pre-dawn light. It took him all of the next day to dig the grave, because the soil was cold and hard and he had to stop and cut roots from the tree out of the way, and his hands were blistered raw by the time he laid Riley to rest for good. Even after he finished, there was a part of him that wanted to stay in this clearing forever, so he'd never have to go back and face his family.

Chris drops to his knees, suddenly exhausted. It's as if Riley took his last breath hours ago, as if Chris just now threw the last shovelful of dirt on his grave. Everything he's been trying not to feel this past month—these past twenty-three years—it all comes rushing up to meet him. The fear, the guilt, by now those are old friends, but the grief is brand-new. Chris has run from what he did, he's tortured himself with what he did, but even through all of that, he still never thought about _after_. Chris lost someone he loved that day, and never let himself feel it. He never grieved. They didn't even get to say goodbye, and that's Chris's fault. Riley was terrified to die, and still all he asked for was to be held and comforted. Chris was the one too frightened to go to him in front of all those people.

Chris doesn't believe in speaking to the dead, he _doesn't_ , but still he squeezes his eyes shut and whispers, over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." What he wouldn't give to comfort Riley now.

So this is it: he found it. Riley's not cut up into pieces or rotting away at the bottom of the lake. He's here, in a place they grew to think of as theirs, under a tree that bears something like his name and date of death. Chris should feel relieved, and a part of him does—but a bigger part of him feels finished. The mystery is solved. He has more today than he did yesterday, and Riley is—Riley is taken care of, as best as he can be.

It'd be nice if everything could be finished, now. Twenty-three years, and Chris still doesn't want to leave this clearing. He slides backwards a little so he can rest his back against the tree. The gun in his waistband digs hard and uncomfortable against the small of his back, so he twists around to hold it in his hand instead. He wishes time could stop here, so he didn't have to get back up and go back to face the world again. And yes, he thinks, gazing absently down at the gun, a part of him wishes he could stop here. It would be nice. But—

Hold on. Chris's gaze focuses—on the gun, on his hand around the grip.

It's steady.

"Holy shit," he breathes, dragging his free hand down his face. Disbelieving, he pops out the magazine, takes the bullets out, and then reloads it, just as quick as he's ever been.

That, Chris thinks, is not a very subtle message.

Allison's hands stopped shaking when she called on her anchor; when she remembered her vow to protect people. But Chris has been holding onto that same anchor since he got it back, and while it keeps him from taking the idea of eating a bullet too seriously, it doesn't stop the shaking of his hands. But when he actually thought about it? Now that he's actually here?

Unbidden, Chris remembers Victoria. She killed herself too, and it makes him so angry that she didn't fight to stay with them, but almost everyone Chris cares about is dead. There's no one he'd miss who couldn't go on without him, even Derek—after all, he has Scott now, he's even going to start running the preserve with him. And the person Chris lives for isn't Derek, it's Allison—but right now, it feels almost like his body is giving him permission not to do it anymore. Dying really was the easy way out for Victoria, despite the fact that in her very last moments, she was afraid to go.

Not Chris. He's still afraid of a lot of things, but dying isn't one of them. The thought of not actually having to get up from here fills him with a bone-deep relief. He didn't come here with this intention, but he read somewhere once that most suicides were impulsive anyway. It was supposed to warn against acting on that impulse, he's sure, but maybe all he needs is just—one moment, where it feels right. Where he can justify it to himself.

Chris leans back to sit properly, his back against the tree, and turns the gun over in his hands in wonder. He doesn't deserve this calm he feels now, but now that he's here, he realizes just how _hard_ life's been without it. Right this second, doesn't know if he can go back to life where he's always afraid and hurting. If he can live like that for as many years as it takes to die some other way. He's probably done more harm than good. It's not really so selfish. The world would be better off. He knows he made a promise. It's just that he's just so _tired_. It would be so good not to have to get up again.

It's the last thought that catches him. If he's going to do it, it should be here, with Riley. Once he leaves, the opportunity will be gone. Except—

He promised. He _promised_ Allison.

Chris just can't decide. He turns the gun over and over in his hands as the shadows grow longer. Time passes; he isn't sure how much. Finally, when the air has cooled and the sky turned golden, he hears a twig snap in the distance and flinches, jerking his head up to the edge of the clearing.

It's a giant black wolf, eyes glowing blue. As Chris watches, Derek stands, shifting into human form—totally naked and absolutely livid.

Shit. Chris gets to his feet. "What are you doing here?"

For someone who claims to have cast off his anger, Derek still wears it with ease. He strides forward, fury in every step. "What am _I_ doing here?" he growls. "I've been looking for _you_ this whole time! You wouldn't answer your _phone_. Do you have any idea how w—" He catches sight of Chris's gun and falls silent.

"I left you a note!" Chris says, bewildered, and suddenly guilty. He forgot about that until he said it. "I told you I'd see you for dinner—"

" _Yesterday_ ," Derek growls, jerking his eyes back up to Chris's face.

"Yesterday?" Shit, _shit_. That's right—it was dark when he went in the house, and light when he came out again. He was so lost in his head he didn't realize. He must have spent the entire night in that godforsaken garage.

Derek holds out his hand. "Give me the gun."

"Are you kidding me?"

Derek lifts his eyebrows. "Do I _look_ like I'm kidding? Give it to me."

Chris hasn't disarmed himself fully in years. He'd feel absolutely naked without it. "No," he says, annoyed by the demand. "I'm not a child, Derek. I'm sorry I scared you, but I—" Can a werewolf hear a half-truth? "I didn't come out here to do what you think I came out here to do—"

"What, blow your brains out?" Derek's right up in Chris's space, just like he was right before they hooked up that first time. "That's good, because you don't _get_ to do that to me. You don't get to show up, and _be_ this to me, and then take the coward's way out—"

That's not fair, Chris thinks angrily, that's not what it's like at all, but Derek himself once said fighting fair was rarely a luxury at his disposal. "You can't seriously think that would be about _you_."

"Actually," Derek says, "I thought that was about Allison."

Chris goes deathly still. The Chris Argent of a few months ago would know that Derek was trying to provoke him out of whatever low he's imagined Chris has fallen into, and he wouldn't rise to the bait no matter what Derek said. But compartmentalizing his emotions is no longer a luxury at _Chris's_ disposal, and that's thanks in part to Derek. "Don't you dare," he says softly, "use her against me like that, Derek, I swear to God—"

Derek takes another step into Chris's space, forcing his back against the tree. "Or what?" he challenges. "You'll shoot me?" He taps his own forehead, right between the eyes, and spreads his arms, standing back a little to make himself a better target. "Come on."

White-hot rage slams into Chris. He uses both hands to shove Derek's chest and get him out of his space. " _Fuck_ you—"

"Fuck _you_!" Derek shoves him right back with only one hand, and still sends him stumbling back into the tree. "It's not about me, fine! But you're not gonna think about _her_?"

"You may have lost a lot of people, Derek, but you are _not_ a parent," Chris snarls, jabbing his finger back into Derek's space. "I think about my daughter every day." His voice cracks. "Every day!"

"Then think of her now!"

" _I'm trying!_ " Chris shouts, and a flock of birds explodes out of a nearby tree, making both he and Derek jump, and turn to watch them.

In the time it takes for them all to take flight, the flapping of their wings to become less deafening, Chris tries to reign in his rage. Tries to find his resolve one more time. Tries to let himself be pulled away from being weak and selfish and tired, so he can be the man Allison would want him to be, instead of lying next to her back at that cemetery.

"I did not," Chris says at last, "come out here to do this. You can listen to my heart if you don't believe me."

Derek turns his head away from the birds, back to Chris. "Then why the hell are you here?"

Chris's jaw works for a moment. He steps into Derek's space—and then past him, towards the sitting rock. When he's a little over halfway past, he turns, and with a defiant look at Derek, pulls free the rose still in his lapel, and drops it on the grave.

Derek's face goes slack with surprise. "You found it?"

Of course Derek understands immediately what this is. If he tracked Chris, he went to the cemetery, saw the roses on the graves; maybe he even went to the old house, and saw the footprints in the dust, the door to the garage still swinging open. Derek's smart. Of course he put it together.

"I had to know," Chris says. "I had to, Derek, I'm not going to apologize for that."

Derek scrubs his hands over his hair. He looks as tired as Chris feels. Was he really out tracking Chris all night? "Can you look me in the eye while I listen to your heartbeat," he asks, "and tell me that once you got here, you had any intention of coming back?"

No use trying to lie to a werewolf. Chris shakes his head, short and sharp. "Look at this." He holds up the hand with the gun it in. It's shaking again. "I was just thinking about it. I told you that's as far as it ever goes, and I mean that. But then I saw that this was steady. First time in a month. And I realized I don't..." His voice wavers. "I don't know how long I can live like this. I just don't know if it's survivable."

"Of course it's survivable," Derek says, voice low; still angry. "That's the worst part. It shouldn't be—just the idea of surviving feels wrong. Because anything that hurts that much ought to kill you, and if you truly loved them, and you really were sorry, you'd die just from the pain of it, right?" He's getting back in Chris's space; only the grave lies between them now. "But you don't die. You get up, every day, and you hate yourself for being the last one standing, and you stand up anyway."

Chris closes his eyes for a moment. "Derek."

Derek steps over the rose. "And one day when you notice it doesn't hurt as much anymore, the guilt crushes you all over again because it's _supposed_ to hurt, you're not _supposed_ to feel better when they're gone—but it still doesn't kill you. You walk around every single day with it screaming in your head and you do it over and over and _it doesn't kill you_ unless _you_ _pull the trigger_. You _survive_."

He's not just talking about Chris anymore.

"You're alive," Derek says softly, "because you've had chance after chance to die, and _you chose_ not to take them. Tell me why."

"Derek," Chris pleads again, exhausted.

" _Tell me._ "

Chris slumps. "I have to protect people," he whispers, throat closing.

"Again," Derek insists, tone gentled but firm. "Say the whole thing."

Chris looks up at him, angry and hurt. They both know damn well what Derek is doing, and they both know it's going to work. "We protect those," he says, "who cannot protect themselves."

"That's right," Derek says. "And you don't protect anybody if you're six feet under. You don't make up for _this_ —" He waves a hand at the grave. "—by being _dead_. It's not supposed to be that easy. Yeah, it hurts. Sometimes it's unbearable. But for better or worse, it _is_ survivable." He holds out his hand again. "Now give me the fucking gun."

Fuck it. Chris gives him the fucking gun.

It takes the fight out of him. He walks over to the sitting rock and drops down onto it, running a hand back through his hair. He didn't realize, being so lost in his head, but he's thirsty and sore and exhausted. All he wants to do now is to pass out.

Derek, appeased, sits down next to him. They're not close enough to touch. "It's funny," he says. "Laura and I used to play here all the time as kids."

"No kidding?" It shouldn't surprise Chris as much as it does; this is practically the Hales' backyard, and he can only guess the tunnel used to be one of theirs. He and Derek and connected in more ways than maybe even the pair of them will ever know. "You never suspected someone was buried here?"

Derek shakes his head. "Never. We used to wonder who carved up the tree, though. The date on that is from the month I was born."

They sit in silence a moment. Chris pinches the bridge of his nose. "How am I supposed to protect anyone when I'm like this?" he whispers finally. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"You mean your hands?"

Chris means his entire general state, but yeah, his hands are the worst of it. "Apparently the trick is to sit down and consider blowing your brains out. Doesn't last long, though."

"Doesn't it?" Derek asks. "Look at them now."

Chris holds them out. They're still.

"What the hell?" He looks back and forth between his hands and Derek, disbelieving. "I'm not planning on shooting myself _now_. I don't understand."

"I think I might." Derek holds up Chris's gun—out of arm's reach. "You armed right now?"

Chris thinks it over. Normally he carries a hidden blade or three tucked wherever he can find room—in his boot, the lining of his jacket, the inside of his sleeves. Lately he's been taking less and less time to arm himself when he wakes up, because between his hands being fucked and the fact that he can't be out of the bunker or the loft without having a nervous breakdown, it's becoming more trouble than it's worth. Chris left the knives at Derek's place this time because he knew he was going out in public, and he wanted to make himself less of a danger. His second gun is still on the floor of the old garage. Right now, for the first time in many years, Chris is totally weaponless.

"No," he says in wonder. "No, I'm not."

"It's just like Allison," Derek says, and when Chris gives him a sharp look he raises his hands in surrender—and that's as close to an apology as Chris is going to get. "Hear me out. You're worried you're going to hurt someone again, just like she was. The only person you aren't scared of putting a bullet in is yourself. But right now, you can't shoot _anyone_. That's why you aren't shaking."

Derek's right. The morning after Chris's hands began to tremble, when things started to get really bad, was the day after he almost shot someone just because he was feeling jumpy. And that hypervigilance, that fear that's been dogging his footsteps since he came back to this town—that was fear of _himself_ , the one and only person he could never get away from, and, for the first time, someone he can no longer control.

Chris scares himself to death.

"Because I don't know," Chris realizes. "I don't know what I'm capable of. I don't know when I stopped remembering things the way they happened and replaced them with something else. I don't know that there aren't other things I made myself forget. Derek, I could have done anything, and I would have no idea." The very idea of it chills him to the core. Like staring down into dark water without knowing where the bottom is; there could be a whole other version of himself lurking beneath his skin that he just can't see. No wonder it makes his hands shake. But he doesn't have to resort to making himself forget murdering someone if he's actually physically incapable of murder. "How am I supposed to just—live my whole life, never knowing?"

Derek takes his time to answer, and Chris realizes a second too late that for Derek, this question isn't a hypothetical one; there are things in his past too that he'll never get back. "You're in control now," he says, "at least when there's not a gun in your hand. If you have control, it can't happen again. And—" Derek hesitates. "You said it yourself: a good man would have buried him, and here he is. You just have to believe that even if there is something else you're missing...you did your best to do good."

Chris has to take a moment to stop and wipe his eyes. "And what if that's not enough?"

"Well, there's always the last resort."

"You giving me my gun back?"

"Not that one." Derek holds up his free hand, claws out, and wiggles his fingers. "When—" He swallows. "After Jennifer. I knew another werewolf could get those memories back for me, but my only option was Peter. I don't know," he says, with a little shrug and half a laugh, "just the idea that there was something worse than not knowing. It became something I could live with."

"Maybe you doing it," Chris says, "wouldn't be worse than not knowing."

Derek sobers. "You don't want me doing that to you." He looks down at his hands, flexing his fingers. "I'm not good at it. I tend to give feedback, and it's more excruciating than torture." He glances at Chris, and then away. "But if it works for you, you can think of it as a safety net instead."

There's a lot to unpack there. Feedback? Worse than torture? Just how much torture does Derek have to compare it to? But before Chris can ask, Derek stands, and holds his hand out to pull Chris to his feet too. Of Chris's gun, he says, "I'm keeping this," He sounds uncertain—probably because he knows how futile that must be.

Chris smiles a little, rueful. "It's not like I don't have more. You going to take them all?"

"I don't have to take them all," Derek says, scowling. "Just the ones that come into my loft." He adds, "I want you to stay with me for a little while. All day, without leaving in the morning. Get out of that fucking bunker. I don't think you should be alone right now."

He keeps saying that. Chris can't decide if he's annoyed or touched. "I'm all right now," he says. "It was—a bad idea, going back to the house. It was just a low moment. It won't happen again. Besides, I don't want to..." That thing Derek talked about, where he and Laura couldn't be apart. Derek clearly doesn't want it to happen a second time. "Intrude on your space."

"Trust me," Derek sighs, "you're not." He glances away and catches sight of the tree still bearing Chris and Riley's initials, and the date of one of the very last nights they spent in this town together. He reaches up with the hand that still has claws, and traces over the letters with one finger.

The two of them don't look much alike, but for just one moment, Derek is the spitting image of Riley. They never had a chance to meet—Riley died before Derek was born—but they almost died the same way. Chris killed the one, but saved the other. Derek wasn't wrong, when he said Chris finally got it right in the end. Too little, and too late, but he _is_ in control now. And that has to be enough.

Derek turns back to Chris. "Stay with me," he asks, like he did the night before last, when they needed each other. He fights with himself a moment, and then says, "Please."

Jesus. Chris really did almost _leave_ him, even after all the loss he's already had to suffer—no warning, no real note, nothing. And Derek—every time, he comes looking. _This is what I'm used to. Try not to run off on me again, okay?_

Chris, with real remorse, steps forward and reaches out, taking Derek's free wrist in his hand. As Derek watches, Chris presses his thumb right into the pulse point.

Derek's head jerks up, surprised, and Chris pulls him in by the back of the head and kisses him. "I'm sorry," he murmurs against Derek's lips when it breaks. "I'm so sorry. Of course I'll stay." Their foreheads touch, and he digs his thumb in harder. "You're not just anyone to me either, you know."

Derek sighs through his nose, but his annoyance is half-hearted at best. "I'm not giving your gun back," he murmurs, eyes closed.

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

"If that's what makes you happy."

Derek opens his eyes to give Chris a distrustful look, but he refrains from comment. "Come on," he says finally, and slides his hand up so that instead of Chris gripping his wrist, their fingers lace together, and their hands press palm-to-palm. "I took the bike here, it's about half a mile away."

"With your clothes, I hope," Chris says as they begin to walk. "If we run into any hikers, there are going to be questions."

Derek shrugs. "You should have thought of that before you ran off. I'd shift, but I can't carry your gun with no hands."

"I can carry it if you want me to, Derek. I'm all right now—really."

"I just told you I'm not giving it back."

Chris glances back over his shoulder one last time as they move deeper into the woods. Through the trees, he sees the branches of the pine bend a little in the wind, and a patch of sunlight fall over the rose on the ground. Before the shadows can cover it again Chris turns to face forward, to keep the image clear in his mind's eye.

Memory, he takes with him. The rest has to be left behind.

 

* * *

 

As soon as they get back to the loft, Derek hands Chris a bottle of water and calls for takeout. "Twenty minutes," he says when he hangs up. "Think you can stay awake that long?"

"Maybe," Chris says. In spite of himself, he's trying to figure out what Derek did with his gun; it vanished somewhere between the elevator and Derek's front door.

"Good. I have something to keep you occupied." Derek kicks a chair out from under the long low work table that seems to be in a different place every time Chris visits. "Sit."

Chris sits. Derek ducks back into the area behind the busted wall. A minute or so later he comes back out with a cardboard box, which he sets on the table. From this he produces a small handheld knife with a long handle and a short blade, flipping it around to give to Chris.

"Oh, I can't have my gun, but a knife is fine?" Chris takes it from him. Frustratingly enough, the hand tremors begin again almost immediately, though not as strongly as before. "What is this for? And what makes you so sure I won't stab myself with it?"

"You owe me one. I saved your life."

"Today doesn't count," Chris argues. "I didn't mean to...it doesn't count. We're still two for two."

Derek shakes his head. "Three." He leans forward with both hands on the table, looming a little. "I pulled you from a _fire_ , remember that? I saved your life."

"You're kidding." Derek spent the entire month they were hunting Kate insisting Chris didn't owe him. Now's a hell of a time to call it in.

"I _saved your life_ , and you _owe me one_ ," Derek says, "and you're never gonna even the score if you bleed to death in my loft." That said, he slaps down on the table a block of wood the size of Chris's fist, a stubby pencil not unlike the one down in his laundry room, and a book. Chris recognizes this last item from Derek's collection in the back—the one on woodworking. From this angle, he can see that though the book is intact, one corner has burn marks.

"It's a carving knife," Derek says, nodding at it. "For whittling. It's not made to hurt people. I think even you would have a hard time killing somebody with it. And your gun's gone."

Oh. Something in Chris's chest goes a little soft.

"You're going to start small," Derek says, twirling around another chair to sit in it backwards. "You get it together enough to make an egg—"

"An _egg_?" Chris interrupts, affronted.

"Beginners start with eggs," Derek says, "that's how you fucked up your finger."

An egg. Jesus. Chris glances outside. "I might still jump off your terrace."

Derek pulls a face. Okay, too soon.

"It's not that bad," Derek says. "I can teach you. I used to this all the time." He produces his own block of wood, another pencil, and a cloth bundle, which when unrolled reveals a larger, more complex looking set of knives. "Make an egg, and then you can try using some of these. You'll work back up to kitchen knives and daggers eventually. You can save guns for last." He picks a few tools out of the bundle for himself and re-rolls it.

Chris can't hide his curiosity. "What are _you_ going to make?"

Derek pulls the book over to himself and thumbs through it. "Jump off my terrace, and you'll never find out," he says, eyes never leaving the pages.

No, Chris thinks, he supposes he won't.

Derek slides the book back over. "There. Mark off the middle like that, and then draw the basic shape on all the sides. Then you can work on taking off the corners and staying in your lines. Think you can handle that?"

Chris has known for decades now how to fire a gun when injured, when freezing, when scared. He's stitched up mortal wounds with dental floss and fishing hooks more times than he can count. He _knows_ how to keep his hands from shaking, even when his whole world is falling down around him. So he _can_ do this. It's just one more thing to remember.

"Yes, actually," he tells Derek, with renewed determination. "Yes, I think I'm going to do just fine."

 _Nous protégeons_ , he reminds himself. He's in control now.

Chris takes a deep breath, and steadies his hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Before I get to the spoilery warning section, I would like to take a moment to recognize a few super-cool people who helped facilitate this thing that I have done! To Emily ([@marcusanthotius](http://marcusanthotius.tumblr.com)), for your willingness to brainstorm, your invaluable feedback, and your patience in dealing with my Angst™; to Coralie ([@machidielontheway](http://machidielontheway.tumblr.com)) for your help with idioms in Franglish and typo correction; to Cathy ([@dellesayah](http://dellesayah.tumblr.com)) for typo correction and also for listening to me complain for _ten solid months_ about how insecure I felt with the whole thing and being supportive and encouraging me time and time again anyway: THANK YOU. I don't think I ever would have made it to the end without you guys. You're the best. ❤
> 
>  **Detailed/spoilery warnings for this fic:** This story deals primarily the PTSD Chris is dealing with as a result of traumatic event from his history which he has just un-repressed after 23 years in which he was forced to kill someone he loved. Some of the things he goes through: flashbacks, nightmares, hand tremors, erectile dysfunction (God, shut up, I know, nobody look at me), losing time, crying spells, grief, panic attacks, mild disordered eating, weight loss, memory loss, serious suicidal ideation, frequent morbid thoughts, and more hypervigilance than you can shake a stick at. For Derek's part, there is also a bit of discussion involving his sexual history, which includes nonconsensual encounters (some of which he has no memory of), and the sexual dysfunction HE experiences as a result. (I know, oh my God.) All the sexual encounters in this fic are between Chris and Derek and are enthusiastically 1000% consensual, but they do have one argument where they shove each other. There is some frank and gory content relating to dead bodies and what you do with corpses to do dispose of them (this is why I added the violence warning) and a sideplot which discusses codependency and how it might be avoided. There's also quite a bit of heavy discussion around the subject suicide and suicidal ideation, and of murder and assisted suicide; where the line is between them, between murder and self-defense, between murder and not preventing murder, between murder and being forced to kill by someone else, etc. Chris admits several times to considering and then deciding against taking his own life, and comes close to following through one time near the end before he is interrupted. For whatever it's worth, I'll also add that the characters in this story have an incredibly unfavorable view of mental healthcare.
> 
> Finally, about the future of these fics: I have more planned! Ones that will probably (hopefully) be much shorter than this! I don't know when or if I will get around to writing them, so please don't wait around on the edge of your seat, but it's safe to assume they will be here eventually. Until then, you can find me posting rough drafts and blogging about these guys at [@thedegenerateasexual](http://thedegenerateasexual.tumblr.com). I have [a tag specifically for this 'verse](http://thedegenerateasexual.tumblr.com/tagged/anchor) and [another for this ship](http://thedegenerateasexual.tumblr.com/tagged/dargent) if those are in your areas of interest. If you like this fic and are feeling charitable, you can [give it a reblog](http://thedegenerateasexual.tumblr.com/tagged/anchor), and help spread it to the six and a half people still into this ship in 2018. Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
